Pay Close Attention To The Insurers Behind Rep Paul Ryan’s Curtain
Democrats who think Paul Ryan and his Republican colleagues have foolishly wrapped their arms around the third rail of American politics by proposing to hand the Medicare program to private insurers will themselves look foolish if they take for granted that the public will always be on their side.
Rep. Ryan’s budget proposal would radically reshape both the Medicare and Medicaid programs. It would turn Medicaid into a block grant, which would give states more discretion over benefits and eligibility. And it would radically redesign Medicare, changing it from what is essentially a government-run, single-payer health plan to one in which people would choose coverage from competing private insurance firms, many of them for-profit.
Poll numbers would seem to give the Democrats the edge in what will undoubtedly be a ferocious debate over the coming months and during the 2012 campaigns. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (pdf) conducted February 27-28 showed that 76 percent of Americans considered cuts to Medicare unacceptable. The public is almost as resistant to cutting Medicaid, at least for now: 67 percent of Americans said they found cutting that program unacceptable as well.
According to a story in Politico this week, Democrats “with close ties to the White House” think Ryan has handed them a gift that will keep on giving. They believe the Ryan blueprint will enable them to portray Republicans as both irresponsible and heartless, hellbent on unraveling the social safety net that has protected millions of Americans for decades. That message will be the centerpiece of the Democrats’ advertising and fundraising efforts, unnamed party strategists told Politico.
Perhaps. But know this: Ryan et al would never propose such a fundamental reshaping of those programs unless they were confident that corporate America stands ready to help them sell their ideas to the public. Like big business CEOs, Congressional Republicans wouldn’t think of rolling out Ryan’s budget plan without a carefully-crafted political and communications strategy and the assurance that adequate funding would be available to carry it out.
Republicans know they can rely on health insurance companies — which would attract trillions of taxpayer dollars if Ryan’s dream comes true — to help bankroll a massive campaign to sell the privatization of Medicare to the public.
The Secret Meeting, and the Secret PR Plot
Four years ago, in a secret insurance industry meeting in Philadelphia, I saw numbers that were similar to those in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. The industry’s pollster, Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, told insurance company executives, who had assembled to begin planning a campaign to shape the health care reform debate, that Americans were rapidly losing confidence in the private health insurance market.
For the first time ever, he said, more than 50 percent of Americans believed that the government should do more to solve the many problems that plagued the U.S. health care system. In fact, he said, a fast-growing percentage of Americans were embracing the idea of a government run “Medicare-for-All” type program to replace private insurers.
The executives came to realize at the meeting that the industry’s very survival depended upon the successful execution of a comprehensive campaign to change public attitudes toward private insurers. They needed to convince Americans they “added value” to the health care system, and that what the public should fear would be more government control.
Knowing that a campaign publicly identified with the industry would have little credibility, the executives endorsed a strategy that would use their business and political allies — and front groups — as messengers.
The main front group was Health Care America. It was set up and operated out of the Washington PR firm APCO Worldwide. The first objective was to discredit Michael Moore’s documentary, Sicko, which was about to hit movie screens nationwide. Moore’s film compared the U.S. health care system to those in countries that had “Medicare-for-All” type programs run by governments. The American system, dominated by private insurers, did not fare well in Moore’s cinematic interpretation.
The front group painted Moore as a socialist but also went about the larger task of scaring the public away from “a government takeover of the health care system.” Part of that work involved persuading Americans that any reform bill expanding Medicare or including a “public option” would represent a government takeover.
The industry knew it had to enlist the support of longtime allies such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Association of Health Underwriters to repeat the term “government takeover” like a mantra. It also had to get conservative talk show hosts, pundits and politicians to play along. And play along they did. In the debate preceding one key House vote involving a public option, a parade of Republicans took to the floor to repeat the industry’s favorite term: government takeover.
To help make sure the term stuck, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the insurers’ lobbying group, funneled $86 million to the Chamber of Commerce to help finance its advertising and PR campaign against any reform legislation that included the public option. It worked like a charm. Polls showed during the course of the debate that public opinion was increasingly turning against the Democrats’ vision of reform. By the time the bill reached President Obama in March 2010, the public option had been stripped out, and public support for reform was well below 50 percent.
“Government Takeover of Health Care”: 2010’s Lie of the Year, Courtesy of Insurers
As a testament to the success of the industry’s campaign, PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Times’ independent fact-checking website, chose “a government takeover of health care” as its Lie of the Year in 2010. (The 2009 Lie of the Year was the fabrication that the Democrats’ reform bill would create Medicare “death panels.”)
While they were leading the effort to torpedo the public option, the insurers were lobbying hard for a provision in the bill requiring all of us to buy coverage from them if we’re not eligible for a public program like Medicare or Medicaid. They won that round, too. That provision alone will guarantee billions of dollars in revenue the insurers would never have seen had it not been for the bill the president signed.
But even that is not enough for the insurers. For many years, they’ve lobbied quietly for privatization of Medicare, with significant success. They were behind the change in the Medicare program in the 1980s that allowed insurers to offer what are now called “Medicare Advantage” plans. The federal government not only pays private insurers to market and operate these plans, it pays them an 11 percent bonus. That’s right: People enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans cost the taxpayers 11 percent more than people enrolled in the basic Medicare program.
During the Bush administration, the insurers persuaded lawmakers to allow them to administer the new Medicare Part D prescription drug program. That has been a major source of new income for the many big for-profit insurers that participate in the program.
Rest assured that insurers have promised Ryan and his colleagues a massive, industry-financed PR and advertising campaign to support his proposed corporate takeover of Medicare. If Democratic strategists really believe that Ryan has all but guaranteed the GOP’s demise by proposing to shred the social safety net for some of our most vulnerable citizens, they will soon be rudely disabused of that notion. The insurers and their allies have demonstrated time and again that they can persuade Americans to think and act — and vote — against their own best interests.
By: Wendell Potter, Center for Media and Democracy, April 7, 2011
“Revere America”: Another Conduit For A Super-Wealthy Family To Influence Elections
On March 23, 2011 a group called Revere America issued a dire-sounding PRNewswire press release titled, “Americans Fear Loss of Freedom on Anniversary of Health Care Reform Law.” It warned that “a majority” of Americans view health care reform as “a threat to their freedom” and cited a poll by Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies to prove it. The release came well after Revere America had spent $2.5 million on attack ads in the 2010 mid-term elections to defeat Democratic candidates in two states — New York and New Hampshire — who had voted in favor of health care reform. Just prior to the mid-term elections, in the autumn of 2010, Revere America ran a a slew of false and misleading attack ads against the health care reform bill that erroneously called health reform “government-run healthcare” (a Republican and insurance industry buzz-phrase). The ads said that the new law will result in higher costs and longer waits in doctors’ offices. In another false claim aimed at inducing fear, the ads told viewers that “your right to keep your own doctor may be taken away.”
But who, or what, is Revere America? And how did it pull together enough money in less than a year to run a multi-million-dollar attack ad campaign, engage an expensive, professional polling firm and pump their message out on PRNewswire?
“Revere America”: Another Veil for a Wealthy Family
Revere America (RA) is a Delaware-based advocacy organization that sprang up in April, 2010. Like so many similar groups springing up after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United, RA is set up in a way that allows it to accept corporate donations, and that keeps it from having to reveal its funders. RA’s titular head at the time of its startup was former New York Governor George Pataki. The group pushes to repeal health reform, also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which Pataki described a “horrific” and “costly bungle.” Donations to RA are not tax deductible, which would seem to make donating huge sums of money to the group less attractive to large numbers of people if it was a real grassroots group made up of ordinary people.
The Collier’s Hamilton Yacht ClubBut it turns out that Revere America is not made up of ordinary people, and its primary funder isn’t all that concerned about money. According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and other sources, Revere America’s primary funder is Parker J. Collier of Naples, Florida, the wife of Miles Collier, a wealthy Florida land baron and real estate developer. Ms. Collier has given half a million dollars to the Republican Party of Florida, $60,800 to the Republican National Committee, and gave an overall total of $1,239,014 to Republican interests — and that was just in 2009-2010.
The Collier money flowing towards Republicans and Revere America is old family money. Parker’s husband, Miles Collier, is the grandson of Barron Collier, who bought over a million acres in south Florida in the early 1900s, and after whom Collier County, Florida is named. Through their company, Collier Enterprises, the Colliers develop tony yacht, golf and members-only country clubs in southwest Florida, where the rich play, dine and sail. In recent years, Collier Enterprises has even been developing entire towns in Florida.
Influencing Elections Throughout the U.S.
The Collier’s private, members-only golf clubFor the Colliers, though, it apparently isn’t enough to have all the amenities of uber-wealth. Through Revere America, the family’s apparent political front group, the Colliers have also been using their money to influence elections throughout the rest of the country. They have financially supported far-right Republican candidates not only in New York and New Hampshire, but in many other states, including Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota), Senator Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts), and Republican Sue Lowden in her failed primary bid to gain the Senate nomination in Nevada, to name just a few. The list of Republican candidates RA funded and Democrats they worked to defeat in the 2010 election cycle numbers over 100, with some elections meriting six figure donations — amounts that far exceed what individuals can legally donate to influence an election.
The professional Republican pollster doing work for RA, Bill McInturff, conducted the message and advertisement testing for the infamous “Harry and Louise” television commercials that helped defeat the Clinton-era health care reform effort. Some of McInturf’s other clients include insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans (the health insurance industry’s lobbying group) and drug maker Pfizer — all of which have a stake in undermining health care reform.
Pataki resigned as RA’s chairman in February, 2011, citing a Florida judge’s ruling the same month that the new health reform law’s federal mandate to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional. Pataki cited this ruling, and the House of Representatives’ symbolic vote to repeal health reform, as creating a good time for him to step down, and as proof that RA had been “successfully launched.” RA’s spokesperson and president is now Florida attorney Marianne R.P. Zuk, who is listed in Florida incorporation records as an officer or director for several Collier-owned companies.
Revere America is a “grassroots group” for the uber-wealthy Collier family in the same way that Americans for Prosperity is a “grassroots” group for the uber-wealthy Koch brothers. Such groups are conduits through which the super-rich are increasingly exerting powerful influence over elections nationwide. RA is yet another group that demonstrates the growing trend in which the wealthiest Americans — in the forms of both human beings and corporations — use their money to create fake “grassroots” front groups to hide behind and influence elections across the U.S.
Be on the look out for many more such groups to crop up in the future as the richest one or two percent of U.S. citizens come under increasing pressure to pay their fair share of taxes, and as we move closer to the 2012 elections.
By: Anne Landman, Center for Media and Democracy, April 8, 2011
Is The Tea Party Just a Big Scam?
E. J. Dionne
Is the tea party one of the most successful scams in American political history?
Before you dismiss the question, note that word “successful.” Judge the tea party purely on the grounds of effectiveness and you have to admire how a very small group has shaken American political life and seized the microphone offered by the media, including the so-called liberal media.
But it’s equally important to recognize that the tea party constitutes a sliver of opinion on the extreme end of politics receiving attention out of all proportion with its numbers.
Yes, there is a lot of discontent in America. But that discontent is better represented by the moderate voters who expressed quiet disillusionment to President Obama at the CNBC town hall meeting on Monday than by tea party ideologues who proclaim the unconstitutionality of the New Deal and everything since.
The tea party drowns out such voices because it has money—some of it from un-populist corporate sources, as Jane Mayer documented last month in The New Yorker—and has used modest numbers strategically in small states to magnify its impact.
Just recently, tea party victories in Alaska and Delaware Senate primaries shook the nation. In Delaware, Christine O’Donnell received 30,563 votes in the Republican primary, 3,542 votes more than moderate Rep. Mike Castle. In Alaska, Joe Miller won 55,878 votes for a margin of 2,006 over incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who is now running as a write-in candidate.
Do the math. For weeks now, our national political conversation has been driven by 86,441 voters and a margin of 5,548 votes. A bit of perspective: When John McCain lost in 2008, he received 59.9 million votes.
Earlier this year, much was made of the defeat of Sen. Bob Bennett, a Utah conservative insufficiently conservative for the tea party. Bennett lost not in a primary but at a Republican convention attended by all of 3,500 delegates.
Even in larger states, the tea party’s triumphs were built on small shares of the electorate. Rand Paul received 206,986 votes in Kentucky where there are more than 1 million registered Republicans and nearly 2.9 million registered voters. Sharron Angle won with 70,452 votes in Nevada, a state with more than 1 million registered voters.
The media have given substantial coverage to tea party rallies and even small demonstrations. But how many people are actually involved in this movement?
Last April, a New York Times/CBS News poll found that 18 percent of Americans identified themselves as supporters of the tea party movement, but slightly less than a fifth of these sympathizers said they had actually attended a tea party rally or meeting. That means just over 3 percent of Americans can be characterized as tea party activists. A more recent poll by Democracy Corps, just before Labor Day, found that 6 percent of voters said they had attended a tea party rally or meeting.
The tea party is not the only small group in history to wield more power than you’d expect from its numbers. In 2008, Barack Obama did very well in party caucuses, which draw many fewer voters than primaries. And it was Lenin who offered the classic definition of a vanguard party as involving “people who make revolutionary activity their profession” in organizations that “must perforce not be very extensive.”
But something is haywire in our media and our politics. Jill Lepore, a Harvard historian whose new book is “The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle Over American History,” observed in an interview that there is a “hall of mirrors” effect created by the rise of “niche” opinion media. They magnify small movements into powerhouses while old-fashioned journalism, which is supposed to put such movements in perspective, reacts to the same niche incentives.
There is also the decline of alternative forces in politics. The Republican establishment, such as it is, has long depended far more on big money than on troops in the field. In search of new battalions, GOP leaders stoked the tea party, stood largely mute in the face of its more outrageous untruths about Obama—and now has to defend candidates like O’Donnell and Angle.
And where are the progressives? Sulking is not an alternative to organizing, and weary resignation is the first step toward capitulation. The tea party may be pulling a fast one on the country and the media. But if it has more audacity than everyone else, it will, I am sorry to say, deserve to get away with it.
E.J. Dionne, Jr. is is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a professor at Georgetown University. He is the author of, most recently, Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right. Original Post: The New Republic, September 23, 2010.
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