I agree with you totally, Mr. Potter. I too worked for a huge insurance company and you portrayed their tactics accurately. Also, it happened to me with my employer changing over to a consumer driven health plan and after having simple wrist surgery I am left with high bills due to high deductible.
Good 4 you speaking out. thank you
Ms. Landman, thank you for replying to my comment. I'd like to add a followup in light of your observations.
You wrote, "Public health authorities and tobacco control advocates don't have anywhere near the budgets necessary to employ the same PR techniques on the same scale as for-profit corporations."
I'm not so sure about that actually. According to the AMA back in 2001, "Tobacco Control" was receiving over eight hundred million dollars a year JUST from the state MSA allocations. When you add in the tens or hundreds of millions more from targeted campaigns by groups like the ALA, ACS, ASH, and the profit-oriented NicoGummyPatchyProductPeople you've got quite a tidy sum. When you throw in the enormous value of free public service advertising on television, the pressures on researchers against taking funding even loosely associated with Big Tobacco (unless it's been laundered through the MSA first) and the wealth of countless unpaid volunteer hours, the "David vs. Goliath" situation that existed in the 1950s through the 1970s has realistically been eliminated or even reversed.
You also wrote, "The irony in the article is that corporations
that profess to have an interest in people's health are now using the same deceptive PR and lobbying techniques that the tobacco industry perfected." That's quite true, but it's nothing new. Antismoking Crusaders use their millions to hire polling groups like the Mellman group to "adjust" public attitudes through the production of biased polling results as evidenced by the promises they make on their marketing web pages:
"Some pollsters simply report on opinions. We use the most sophisticated analytical tools available to understand the motivations of consumers and voters so we can intervene in their decision-making processes to produce the outcomes our clients want."
http://www.mellmangroup.com/win.htm
Again, thank you for your reply... I'd had my doubts as to whether my original post would even see the light of day. Missouri GASP seems to enjoy posing as a public blog unafraid of the opposition, but when they actually get substantive postings challenging their position they simply censor them by leaving them in "in moderation" status.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
I think that the original poster used the wrong examples. Just look at healthcare Co.s and the current Administration, they both use the same tactics, and both have very large funding sources. That is what is so frustrating, both are using carefully crafted positioning missives to push us in one direction or the other. Neither is interested in fully educating the voting public because both have stakes in this horse race and neither has the best interests of the general public as their core driver. Though I will say the Insurance industry is more of the bad guy.
Government is not the organization any of us want to run/actually implement something as important and necessary as healthcare, but a leash does need to be put on the insurance industry, completely out of control. My big question with all of these town hall soundbites, when did this love affair between the public and the insurance industry come about? Everyone I have ever spoken to has never had anything good to say about their insurance company in the past, now we see folks screaming about don't touch my private insurance company...funny...The big corporate and govt spin machines are well oiled and moving right along.
BlueCross Blue Shield is spending not for profit dollars on a huge "vote against reform" campaign. They printed cards for employees and their families to sign, gathered them up and took them to senators ... stating they are against the public option. They play the fear card ... if you don't help us stop this, you might lose your job. It is all about greed - the CEO of our local BCBS gives himself and three others HUGE raises ... while sending emails to employees telling them to tighten their belts and take a 2% (or none) increase. All the while the cost of living steadily rises. The media needs to take a good look at how the healthcare giants are spinning the truth and misinforming the public. SHAME on them ... the media needs to get involved and investigate this. They continue the lies.
Mr. Potter,
I commend you for stepping up and taking on formidable opponents. You are giving a voice to millions of people who have lost their livelihoods and their lives to a system gone so horribly wrong. I just happened to overhear your story on CNN last evening. It seemed to me to be a very short piece on something so important. What i don't understand is why it is not getting more coverage everyday by the media.I hope that some investigative journalism is happening now to include you insights on the industry and the system before any bills are signed into law so that the public can see what is really happening here.
How do these people put their heads down at night knowing what they are doing and have done to so many of us?
Thank You
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