The nonsensical false "Job Killing" meme that is part of the attack on the limited health reform we got, is nothing more than the predictable, prescripted, routine PR "playbook" that the nastiest elements of big business always trot out. It is the same attack used against every piece of socially positive legislation, be it second hand smoke, food labeling, sugary drink taxes, etc.
Wendell Potter, the former head of corporate communications for CIGNA, turned whistle blower describes this playbook in the video clip below and in his book Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans. Mr. Potter has testified to congress, been on Bill Moyers and MSNBC and other media. The Nation cited him as 2010's most valuable author.
As it happens, Mr Potter spoke in NYC this past Monday, at an event sponsored by the New York City metro area chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program.
In first part of his talk he talks about the coporate PR "playbook" as it was applied to defeat a proposed tax on sweetened drinks in Philadelphia. A pure phony astroturf front group is formed. In this case call "Americans against food taxes" funded by Soda industry and allies such as the fast food chains (e.g., McDonalds and junk food store chains (e.g., 7-11), McDonalds, etc. They pretend to be representing Americans but are just a beltway PR firm with a fake address. They lie with the message that it is a tax on groceries, rather than the narrowly defined tax that it is, and of course call "job killing tax." They enlist allies to go along with this and target poor and working class people. And the message is fear.
One key point, part of the playbook as it plays out every time, is that they know they cannot present themselves for who they are. The cannot be "Big Soda" or "Fast Food." It has to be a combination of phony front asturf "citizen" groups and also, for part of the messaging, general busines (e.g., the Chamber of Commerce). Even though the actual backing will be the specific narrow special interest, it has to be presented generally.
Also part of the playbook is that industry is actually trying to help. With tobacco, after "Joe Camel" big tobacco tried to convince us that they were trying to keep kids from starting to smoke (that is a lie). With sugary drinks they PR campaign actually tries to claim that the soda industry is doing its part to reduce kids intake of soda. And with health insurance, they are telling us they want to take better care of us and protect the "best system of health care in the world." They do not, and it is not.
And it is always claimed to be "job killing" but never actually is if the law gets enacted. We have been through the it's job killing here in NYC with the ban on indoor smoking including bars and restaurantts (business went up after implemented). They said the same thing about seat belts. Too expensive and job killing. It was not. It never is.
Below are the first two of four clips covering all of Mr. Potter's talk in NYC on Monday January 10.
The discussion of the Corporate PR "Playbook" start around the 5-minute mark in the first clip and continues through about the 5-minute mark in the second clip.
(the beginning of the first clip are introductory remarks, and the end of the second clip is the beginning of Mr. Potter's recounting of the health insurance industry attack on Michael Moore and the moveie "Sicko").
Wendell Potter 1st of 4:
Wendell Potter 2nd of 4:
Tomorrow I will have the latter parts of Mr. Potter's talk, wherein he explains how the health reform battle went down, and what we can really expect in the fight ahead regarding repeal (not going to happen), individual mandates (what the industry wants) and the real coming battle which will be weakening the good parts of the bill (no pre-exisiting condition limits/guarantee issue and the limited community rating).
In addition to Mr. Potter's book, for those who are interested in how the heatlh reform we got went down and where we go from here, I (and Bill Moyers) strongly recommend Dr. John Geyman's book Hijacked: The Road to Single Payer in the Aftermath of Stolen Health Care Reform and his prescient earlier book Do Not Resuscitate: Why the Health Insurance Industry is Dying, and How We Must Replace It.
Peace & Health
