Submitted by Anne Landman on
After months of appearing to be cooperative while quietly working behind the scenes to influence health care reform, the health insurance industry has finally launched a wholesale attack against the Senate Finance Committee's health insurance reform legislation on the day before Committee members are set to vote on the plan.
Submitted by Mary Bottari on
Rarely does the U.S. government crack down on itself for misleading the public, but in a refreshing turn of events -- that is just what happened this week in Washington, D.C.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Just who is in the Tea Party movement? In the lead-up to the anti-health care reform, anti-Obama administration rally in Washington DC on September 12, the "Tea Party Express" bus tour held smaller, local rallies across the country.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"Size matters," notes Columbia Journalism Review, in a post on the September 12 "Tea Party Express" rally in Washington DC (where some protester signs read, "Bury Obama Care with Kennedy").
Submitted by John Stauber on
"As nearly 2,000 progressives made their way last weekend to Pittsburgh for the annual Netroots Nation conference, the right made its stand in the same town with a conference called RightOnline, sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a group that has gained notoriety for its involvement in organizing seemingly grassroots opposition to health-care reform," reports Adele Stan.
Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (a.k.a. the SIGTARP ) caused quite a stir in Washington last week when he released a quarterly report that attempted to tally up the total dollar amount of federal government commitments related to the bailout. Those commitments include federal government programs that spend taxpayer money or issue loan guarantees in an attempt to rescue financial services institutions and support the economy. While the administration and the media have focused on the $700 billion in bailout funds explicitly authorized by Congress, Barofsky tried to bring a little transparency to the complex array of federal programs including those of the Treasury and the opaque Federal Reserve. His report put the potential outlay of taxpayer dollars of the combined 50-plus programs at an astonishing $23.7 trillion.
Submitted by Anne Landman on
Now that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is set to start regulating tobacco, you might think that the tobacco industry has finally been brought to heel. The industry's activity in California shows that's far from the case.
Politico is reporting that Congressional Republicans want to force their colleagues in the House and Senate who vote for a public insurance option as part of health care reform to enroll in that public plan when it becomes available.
I think Democrats ought to call their bluff and pledge to be the first to sign up. If they do, they will have to shove me out of line. I would love to have the option of enrolling in a public plan that offers a decent standard benefit package at a more affordable price. I am sick and tired of knowing that only 80 cents of every dollar I pay in premiums to my private insurer goes to pay doctors and hospitals for care they provide. (This figure is down from 95 cents in 1993 before the industry came to be dominated by a cartel of high for-profit insurance companies like the two I used to work for.) I am eager not to have to donate 20 cents of every premium dollar to cover my insurer's sales, marketing and underwriting expenses and to help make the CEO and the big institutional investors and Wall Street hedge fund managers even more obscenely rich than they already are, thanks to the inflated premiums we have to pay.
Wendell Potter, the Center for Media and Democracy's Senior Fellow on Health Care, was interviewed for most of an hour by Bill Moyers on his Journal program Friday, July 10th.
Wendell Potter spent more than 20 years as a public relations executive for two large health insurers - Cigna and Humana - but left the industry after witnessing practices he felt harmed American health care consumers. In his own words:
I am speaking out about how big for-profit insurers have hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street investors, and how the industry is using its massive wealth and influence to determine what is (and is not) included in the health care reform legislation members of Congress are now writing. I was in a unique position to see not only how Wall Street analysts and investors influence decisions insurance company executives make but also how the industry has carried out behind-the-scenes PR and lobbying campaigns to kill or weaken any health care reform efforts that threatened insurers' profitability.
Wendell first went public as an advocate for health care reform as the lead witness at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on June 24 and has since attracted significant and continuing news media attention.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Conservatives for Patients' Rights, a group bankrolled by Richard Scott and promoted by CRC Public Relations, is going beyond its "ominous ads warning that President Barack Obama
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