BigIns Whistleblower on "BigIns in bed with BigTobacco"
Mort Zuckerman
pkru...@princeton.edu, Stanle...@fiu.edu,
emcsw...@niaid.nih.gov, afa...@niaid.nih.gov,
Spin...@yahoogroups.com, kshe...@calea.org, fit...@gmail.com,
patrick.f...@usdoj.gov, model...@sbcglobal.net,
jdr...@nejm.org, let...@courant.com, Jgerb...@cdc.gov,
michae...@po.state.ct.us, con...@po.state.ct.us, executive-
edi...@nytimes.com, managin...@nytimes.com, news-
ti...@nytimes.com, biz...@nytimes.com, for...@nytimes.com,
nati...@nytimes.com, dv...@cdc.gov, brigidc...@optonline.net,
tr...@hotmail.com, illino...@aol.com, jle...@courant.com,
tinaj...@yahoo.com, jhorn...@fff.org, thomas...@usdoj.gov,
thoma...@po.state.ct.us, kur...@washpost.com,
georg...@washpost.com, p...@allegorypress.com,
commissi...@po.state.ct.us, brans...@comcast.net,
vts...@comcast.net, o...@po.state.ct.us, freet...@charter.net,
scott....@po.state.ct.us, govern...@po.state.ct.us,
attorney...@po.state.ct.us, randall...@usdoj.gov,
Robert....@yale.edu, edi...@greenwich-post.com,
harol...@yale.edu, sedm...@nswbc.org, rrmcg...@aol.com
Cc: fra...@ucia.gov, dr-ahma...@president.ir,
eugener...@washpost.com, afa...@niaid.nih.gov,
bmi...@newstimes.com, tr...@hotmail.com, rast...@aol.com,
billc...@gmail.com, amcg...@rms-law.com, rjmu...@aol.com,
paulcrai...@yahoo.com, sidney_b...@yahoo.com,
criminal...@usdoj.gov, karla.d...@usdoj.gov,
christophe...@usdoj.gov, richar...@yale.edu,
harol...@yale.edu, james.p...@yale.edu, inq...@aldf.com,
ly...@idsociety.org, meganm...@theatlantic.com,
bob.d...@latimes.com
Subject: BigIns Whistleblower on "BigIns in bed with BigTobacco"
Date: Jul 11, 2009 2:24 AM
Yeah, we know:
http://www.actionlyme.org/ALDF_BOARD.htm
http://www.actionlyme.org/OTHER_ALDF_SPONSORS.htm
ALDF with the AIG Greenbergs, Kaiser-Permanente and
Philip Morris ("controversy" anyone?)
Remarkably, there were Venture Caps interested in the
ALDF.com after the Free NIH Grants Venture Capital.
(Hey!! We *ALL* want a part of *THAT* deal. It's like
double-insider-trading: The crooks contract with NIH insiders
like Edward McSweegan and others at the NIH and CDC,
and then when the CDC and NIH promote the commercial
enterprise's commercial products, the likes of Mort Zuckerman
and the Greenberg get to invest!!)
Kathleen M. Dickson
===============================================
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/10
Published on Friday, July 10, 2009 by PRWatch.org
The Ultimate Irony: Health Care Industry Adopts Big Tobacco's PR
Tactics
by Wendell Potter
At first look, one might not think that the health insurance industry
has much in common with the tobacco industry. After all, one sells a
product that kills people and the other sells a product nominally
aimed at putting people back together. But when it comes to deceitful
public relations techniques, the health insurance industry has been
learning well from Big Tobacco, which employed a panoply of shady but
highly successful public relations tactics to fend off changes to its
business for generations.
One of the things I said in my testimony before the Senate Commerce
Committee on June 24 is that the health insurance industry engages in
duplicitous public relations campaigns to influence public opinion and
the debate on health care reform. By that I mean there are campaigns
they want you to you know about, and those they don't.
When you hear insurance company executives talk about how much they
support health care reform and can be counted on by the President and
Congress to be there for them, that's the campaign they want you to be
aware of. I call it their PR charm offensive.
When you read or hear someone other than an insurance company
executive -- including members of Congress -- trash some aspect of
reform the industry doesn't like, such as the creation of a public
health insurance option, there's a better-than-even chance that person
is shilling for the industry. That's the PR campaign the industry
doesn't want you to know about.
The public relations and lobbying firms that work for the industry
plan and carry out those deception-based campaigns, and supply the
shills with talking points. One of many tactics they use is to get
people who are ideologically in sync with the industry's agenda to
turn those talking points into letters to the editor.
An example of a letter that contained many of the industry's messages
appeared in the June 27 edition of the New York Times.
The writer, Pete Petersen, identified as an employee benefits
consultant for small employers, took issue with a June 20 Times
editorial, which noted that, like Medicare, "a public plan (health
insurance) plan would have lower administrative expenses than private
plans."
Mr. Petersen claimed that the Medicare program is a poor example of an
efficient government program because it is administered by the private
sector. While it is true that the government contracts with private
companies to handle claims, the reason Medicare has such low
administrative costs is because it does not have the unnecessary
overhead expenses private insurers have, such as costs associated with
sales, marketing and underwriting.
Mr. Peterson also wrote that Medicaid, Champus and state CHIPs "that
are administered by federal, state and municipal authorities" average
26 percent in administrative costs. What he did not mention is that in
many if not most cases, those authorities have turned those programs
over to the insurance industry to run. Private insurers' involvement
in those programs is much greater than in the Medicare program. That
helps explain why they have higher administrative costs.
Mr. Peterson also claimed that, according to a 2006
PricewaterhouseCoopers study, "86 cents of every premium dollar goes
directly toward paying for medical services." What he does not
disclose is that America's Health Insurance Plans, the insurance
industry's biggest trade and lobbying group, commissioned that study.
A 2008 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers that was not paid for by the
insurance industry tells a different and more revealing story. That
study reveals that the percentage of premium dollars going to pay for
medical care has fallen from more than 95 percent to slightly more
than 80 percent since 1993.
For another great example of how the insurance industry uses its
allies to flood newspapers with letters to the editor, read Trudy
Lieberman's April blog post for Columbia Journalism Review. She
discloses how an alert editorial page editor at the North Andover,
Massachusetts Eagle-Tribune caught the industry red-handed.
© 2009 Center for Media & Democracy
Wendell Potter is the Senior Fellow on Health Care for the Center for
Media and Democracy in Madison, Wisconsin.
"[Real] scientists are *fiercely* independent. That's the good
news."-- NIH's Top Fool, Anthony Fauci