Corporations

Is Obama Planning to Sign Congress' Health Care Reform Bill with Lipstick?

Over the coming weeks, Americans will find out whether the man they elected their president is just a great orator and politician or whether he is also a great leader.

Of the central features of candidate Barack Obama's health care proposal, he said one thing was essential -- a public insurance option to compete with the private insurance industry that is now dominated by a cartel of Wall Street-driven, for-profit behemoths. Another thing Obama said he would not support -- a requirement that all of us be forced by law to buy overpriced health coverage from private insurance companies.

Many of the people who voted for Obama did so because they believed his health care proposal was the best among the field of Democratic candidates and -- no contest here -- far better than the insurance industry-backed plans advocated by the Republicans.

Obama was not alone in calling for a public insurance option. So did Hillary Clinton, among others. About the only thing that distinguished Obama's plan from Clinton's, in fact, was his opposition to forcing all of us to buy health insurance. "Why should we force people to buy something they can't afford?" he asked repeatedly on the campaign trail.

After listening to the speeches he made in Montana and Arizona and to comments made by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, on the Sunday morning talk shows, I'm wondering what happened to the guy Americans elected.

Oil Industry Front Group Rallies for Global Warming

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on

"Taking a cue from angry protests against the Obama Administration's health care restructuring, the oil industry is helping organize anti-climate bill rallies around the nation," reports Ian Talley.

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Main Source: 
Wall Street Journal's "Washington Wire" blog, August 11, 2009
Topics: 
Front Groups
Climate Change
Corporations

General Motors Likes the Cash, but not the Clunkers' Waste

Submitted by Judith Siers-Poisson on

The Obama administration's Cash for Clunkers program rewards consumers for buying more fuel-efficient cars to replace older models, which benefits the auto industry through increased sales. But the program also mandates that the "clunkers" that are traded in be destroyed, creating a large amount of toxic waste to be handled.

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Main Source: 
Associated Press, August 11, 2009
Topics: 
Corporations
Environment
U.S. Government

Tech Upstarts Avoid Scrutiny on the Web

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on

The "new world of promoting start-ups in Silicon Valley," California, is "where the lines between journalists and everyone else are blurring and the number of followers a pundit has on Twitter is sometimes viewed as more important than old metrics like the circulation of a newspaper," observes the New York Times. Instead of angling for "mentions in print and on television," publicists for new tech companies "court influential voices on the social Web." This means that "P.R.

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Main Source: 
New York Times, July 4, 2009
Topics: 
Internet
Corporations
Public Relations

Bill Moyers Journal Features CMD's Wendell Potter

Wendell Potter and Bill Moyers

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.

Big Business Fights Consumer Protection

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on

Key to the Obama administration's proposal for financial industry reform is the establishment of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. The proposed agency would "have a broad mandate to cover the spectrum of consumer financial products and to fill gaps in current regulations." Not surprisingly, big business is fighting back.

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Main Source: 
Washington Post, July 1, 2009
Topics: 
Corporations
Economy
U.S. Government

Obama's False Friends of Health Reform

I'm hoping President Obama realizes that some of the folks who've been currying favor with him are not, as they claim, bringing "solutions" to the health care reform table. Most Americans -- especially those who voted for him -- want nothing to do with the kind of "reforms" they are peddling.

If you watched the president's televised Q&A on ABC last Wednesday night, you probably noticed that one of the people in the audience was Ron Williams, the chairman and CEO of Aetna, Inc., the nation's third largest health insurer, and currently one of the most profitable. But there are a few things that you should know about Williams.

The Waxman-Markey Crisis

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on

As the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill nears a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, environmental groups are "teetering at the edge of existential crisis," writes Josh Harkinson. "Almost all environmental groups agree that Waxman-Markey is far from ideal," but some are supporting it, while others "believe the bill is so deeply flawed it might actually make matters worse." Critics say the bill "lines the pockets of polluters with little to show for it.

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Main Source: 
Mother Jones, June 22, 2009
Topics: 
Climate Change
U.S. Congress
Corporations

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