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Yesterday, Ken Johnson at the New Bedford Eagle-Tribune in Massachusetts, noticed something fishy going on with the letters to the editor his paper was receiving:
Across Massachusetts, senior citizens are writing letters to newspapers demanding that their representatives in Congress protect a form of health insurance called Medicare Advantage.
At least that’s what newspaper editors are supposed to think.
Some of those seniors are unaware that they have sent any such letters to newspapers. Some of them hadn’t even heard of Medicare Advantage.
"I did not write a letter to the editor. It’s not from me," said Gloria Gosselin, 75, of Lawrence.
Gosselin’s name was on one of three strikingly similar letters touting the Medicare Advantage program that were sent to The Eagle-Tribune.
It turns out, these letters came from the Dewey Square Group, a Boston-based political marketing and consulting firm, who has been hired by America’s Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry lobby, to fight against President Obama’s plan to stop subsidizing private insurers through Medicare Advantage.
The Dewey Square Group has been using some extremely deceptive practices to get AHIP’s message out:
A tip-off to the true origin of the letters came when The Eagle-Tribune received a call from a man who turned out to be an intern at the Boston office of the Dewey Square Group, a national political marketing and consulting firm.
The man, who identified himself as Noah, wanted to know if Gloria Gosselin’s letter had been published. Asked what interest he had in the letter, Noah replied that he was Gosselin’s grandson.
Gosselin does not have a grandson named Noah working in Boston. Her only grandson is a student at Central Catholic.
If the people sending these letters have never heard of the issue or the paper "their" letter was sent to, and if hired consultants are impersonating these people’s relatives, it’s clear these Americans are being used by AHIP to promote their fake grassroots campaign.
Since AHIP paid the Dewey Square Group to run this campaign, and since a responsible signer of checks would have some idea of what their money is being used for, I think it’s safe to assume AHIP had some idea of the tactics the Dewey Square Group is using here. I say it’s safe to assume because at least up until now, AHIP has had no comment.
This is not the first time AHIP has engaged in astroturfing. Health Care for America Now activists confronted AHIP at the launch of its faux “listening tour” this summer, and the industry front group responded by altering its schedule and refusing to openly publicize future dates and times. We also exposed AHIP’s hollow solicitation for consumer feedback with a video proving AHIP’s toll free number went straight to voicemail and remained unanswered.
So, the question should be asked: Does the insurance industry, as represented by America’s Health Insurance Plans, endorse using unsuspecting Americans in a fake grassroots campaign to combat a government giveaway that is in danger of being repealed? Are these the kind of tactics we can expect when the insurance industry tries to manufacture "grassroots" opposition to health care reform later this year?
The silence on the part of AHIP says all you and I need to know.
(also posted at the NOW! blog)
I’m proud to work for Health Care for America Now.
15 Comments
jason, do you still think that insurance companies should have a role to play in national health care reform, and if so what role?
thanks.
Sounds Like Fraud to me any chance of Prosecution?
any chance i could get an answer on this question? it’s not the first time i’ve asked.
and it’s not like i’m asking for no good reason:
would love to have a discussion about what role you see for insurance companies, since HCAN doesn’t think single payer is the way to go (Why not single-payer?), i’d love to know exactly what plan/policy you are advocating for.
Should the industry have a role in health care reform? No. If it were up to me (or Health Care for America Now), the insurance industry wouldn’t have a seat at the table during negotiations, Congress wouldn’t open the door to their lobbyists, and they would be shut out of the debate.
But I’m not sure that’s exactly what you wanted to ask. Your question, and your followup, seem more to the formulation, “Should the insurance industry have a place in our health care system?”
And that, my and HCAN’s answer, is yes. Not because that’s necessarily the best way, but because we have a largely private system now, and we aren’t going to get rid of that trillion dollar industry overnight. I’d refer you to the Atul Gawande piece for more about the virtues of building on what we have.
So, what are we advocating for? The Obama health care plan. Regulation on the insurance industry. A strong public health insurance option to lower costs and provide people a guaranteed backup. And subsidies to make it all affordable.
thanks for the reply. i wasn’t asking what role insurance companies should have in policy formation, i was asking what role you thought insurance companies should have in a reformed health care system. so the second part (with the answer “yes”) is on point.
i don’t know what obama’s health care plan is. i haven’t seen it written up anywhere. could you give me a link? i’d like to know what exactly what kind of regulation on the the insurance industry, exactly what kind of public health insurance option and exactly what kind of subsidies? how would the poorest, the homeless fit in?
because as far as i can tell from trying to read between the lines, it doesn’t add up.
i’m off to read the gawande piece (thanks for the link), because i don’t think anyone is advocating getting rid of insurance companies overnight (and i don’t think it’s a trillion dollar a year – but if it is, that’s even more reason why we need to phase it out. we just don’t have the money to keep bailing out the financial services industry). i also don’t see the utility of pre-capitulation (reminds me of the stimulus).
p.s. that trillion dollars (or couple of hundred billion) is the money that could be used to fund the public side.
Good questions selise. The insurance industry is well regulated at the state level, but insurance laws are inadequate and as long as lobbyists as ethical as AHIP are running the show they will continue to be so. Subsidies to make it affordable=a giveaway, in the present system. Single payer is the only realistic long term solution.
Well, there is no specific policy yet, not from Obama nor Congress nor HCAN. That’s pretty intentional, actually. One of Clinton’s main mistakes back in 93 was to lay out the entire plan for Congress to pass. Congress balked at being told what to do, the plan hung out there in its gory details and was easy to pick apart by the opposition, and eventually everyone found something in it they didn’t like. Death by a thousand cuts, you could say.
HCAN does have 10 principles for reform. What that means is that any eventual plan or policy idea that doesn’t meet our principles we won’t support. Now, of course, that still leaves a lot of questions. Now is the time those are being worked out in Congress. Here are a few ways things are going.
Max Baucus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has laid out a more detailed version for health care reform here.
Ideas have been coming together on what exactly a public health insurance option would look like. Jacob Hacker just released a report on how it might look.
Affordability is a big issue, and methods need to be devised to make sure insurance is truly affordable to all, including the homeless and the poor. Hacker has some of those details, but more will be coming I’m sure, from Obama, from us, and from Congress.
Same with regulation, though there does seem to be consensus that outlawing discrimination based on pre-existing conditions and mandating a standard set of benefits is in the cards.
As for pre-capitulation, well, we progressives love this talking point, and it’s true in a large sense. But you also have to start at a reasonable point. If the progressive line had been to write the insurance industry out of existence, we would have never even made it to the negotiating table. By laying out the policy as Obama has done, we’ve made health care reform not only possible, but even probable, and this year, too. And you know what? Though it might not be single payer, the system we get out of Obama and Congress might actually make health insurance affordable, offer people a robust guaranteed backup in the public health insurance option, eliminate health disparities in communities of color, and bring costs way down. So what if private insurance is still in the game? Competition with the public health insurance plan will force it to actually perform the duty it was created to perform (give people health insurance) or go out of business.
first you tell me you are advocating for the obama health care plan, and only when asked you tell me there is no plan?
this sounds like another obama bait and switch. you are asking me to support something that doesn’t exist – and worse from an administration that has larry summers in charge of economic policy. that does not give me confidence, just the opposite.
no fracking way. i want something more specific to support.
how about this: can you give me any example of a hypothetical plan, the kind of plan that includes insurance companies, that you think would work with enough detail to let me be able to judge things like how much it would probably cost and who it would probably cover? now i’m not asking for the obama plan, or the hcan plan, or your plan. just a proof of concept. can it actually ever work as policy? has it ever worked as policy? that is what i want to know.
i don’t see the need to reinvent the wheel, especially if there is no proof of concept (even a hypothetical one).
from firedoglake, june 2008: Don’t Reinvent the Wheel When Fixing America
first, pre-capitulation is NOT a talking point. it’s a learned experience from obama generally and the stimulus bill specifically
second, i think you are confusing progressives with obama: “By laying out the policy as Obama has done, we’ve made health care reform…” (my bolds). we are not obama.
i’ll expand on the issue of pre-capitulation:
from jane in february: Progressive Power Through Passive Aggression?
We are advocating for a plan that is coming together more and more every day. It is possible to advocate for principles instead of fine policy points, it happens all the time, and that’s what we’re doing and ask people to support.
The details of health care reform are coming into place now. Committees are holding hearings and drafting legislation as we speak. If you wait until there is a full plan in place to “evaluate” it, then you will have lost your chance to make your voice heard. Once the full plan is in place, it’s either an up or down vote.
So, if you have concerns about how our health care system will work if reform is passed, if you want to make your voice heard on things like affordability, if you want to make sure a hybrid private-public system can do things like guarantee coverage at prices people can afford, then you need to get in the game now.
I’m not saying you need to support us. Support what you want. But reserving judgment on what’s going on in Congress until you see full details will ensure you’ll be shut out of the process.
As to whether the public-private hybrid can work, I’d again refer you to the links I pointed you to above. Jacob Hacker thinks it can work. So does Max Baucus. So does Obama. So does Ezra Klein. I’ve yet to hear a good argument on why it can’t work, though.
jason, i live in MA. i have good reason to think it can’t work.
and i’m already shut out of the process if i don’t use my own head and my own judgement to think things through for myself.
all i’m asking for is ONE proof of concept. so i can evaluate it for myself. appeals to authority rarely work with me, and certainly won’t with the list of people you’ve given me. (obama thinks bailing out the banksters and attempting to reinflate the bubble economy is good policy. i think it’s the biggest rip off in history, and after bush 43 that’s saying a lot.)
just one proof of concept. even a hypothetical one. that’s all i’m asking for.
until then, i’m advocating for a policy that we know can work. because it has.
Selise, good for you. jason is very busy dancing around your questions. So far, as you say obama (I can’t capitalize his name anymore) isn’t listening to the people that voted for him. obama’s choices for all the positions of power have been to the right of center at best, and outright bush status quo at worst. This call by jason is for support of something that you can’t see until it springs full blown from the forehead of Zeus. obama has already shown how much he listens to those that are not in lock step, for instance, Krugman, Stiglitz, Roubini, etc. obama doesn’t even listen to himself as he attacked w’s policies and now is holding on to them and even extending them. What change?
Actually, there is a really good reason Mass can’t work. It’s because it doesn’t have a public health insurance option to control costs. In fact, Mass specifically said they were going to do coverage first, then costs, and that has created huge problems.
If you’re looking for proofs of concept, the closest that comes to mind is France, which does have a public/private partnership. But of course, there are huge differences, too. Whatever we come up with, I guarantee it won’t look anything like what already exists. The system is too big and unique to allow for that.
However, I’m not sure why papers like Hacker’s don’t serve as a proof of concept for you. It lays out how the thing would work. What exactly isn’t there that you think you need to see?
no, actually, there are many reasons the MA model doesn’t work. and a public option wouldn’t fix them all or even most of them – not by a long shot.
re france. are you advocating that prescription drug prices should be controlled by the SSA? and that drug companies only be allowed to advertise to physicians? because, unless i’m wrong, that’s also part of their system.
again, i don’t know why we have to work so hard to reinvent the wheel. unless the goal is to satisfy insurance companies (and possibly big pharma). why not use medicare as a starting point and improve it (learning from the lessons of other industrialized countries with better systems)? or is the plan to wreck medicare too by replacing it with a mixed system?
re the hacker plan. the holes are massive. one of the biggest i see is the regulatory one: the complex rules (risk adjustment, etc) that aren’t specified except in principle (did i miss that?). it all sounds like an administrative nightmare and something opaque and complicated enough to be easily gamed. oversight would, i’d think, be more difficult than for TARP. and we know how that one is working out. i’ll take a more careful look at the hacker proposal (and ask someone i know who really knows this stuff inside and out for an opinion), but at the moment this plan makes no sense to me – especially for the real world. the world we live in is the one where the financial services industry has obama dancing like a puppet on a string. and just to be clear, since 1999 the insurance companies are part of the financial services industry (thanks in large measure to robert rubin and larry summers). i don’t want complicated rules and regulations that the insurance companies will be able to game.
finally, i don’t know why you are spending time trying to convince progressives that there is nothing wrong with a health care system based on insurance companies. if a public option in a mixed system is what you are after, why don’t you want single payer advocates included to make your proposals the “centrist” compromise position?
are you also spending an equal amount of time making the case for your model of reform to conservatives at conservative blogs?
I mean, we’re going to get a unique system because our system and our country is unique. Gawande spelled that out pretty clearly. No matter what idealists want, we’ll get something that’s messy. That’s just life.
Now, the public health insurance plan will likely be modeled closely on Medicare, which is a good thing, and it will likely be separate from Medicare, another good thing, so the two plans fates aren’t tied together.
As for involving single-payer advocates in the discussion, I’m all for it, as long as they don’t keep telling me single-payer or nothing. Single-payer is not what we’re going to get, and so I’m happy to talk and work together as long as the perfect isn’t made the enemy of the good. There are a lot of people who believe in single-payer who have great ideas, have though about this deeply, and can help make our proposals better or more satisfying.
And in fact, we’ve seen a lot of single-payer advocates doing just that, with the Progressive Caucus drawing a line in the sand, saying they need a public health insurance option in reform, or John Conyers, who sponsors the single-payer bill in the House, signing on with HCAN’s principles.
These are good things. We need to come together, because if we don’t, we’ll get a weaker version of reform, or no reform at all.
As for conservative blogs, no, I don’t spend time there.