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The Ultimate Irony: Health Care Industry Adopts Big Tobacco's PR Tactics
At first look, one might not think that the health insurance industry has much in common with the tobacco industry. After all, one sells a product that kills people and the other sells a product nominally aimed at putting people back together. But when it comes to deceitful public relations techniques, the health insurance industry has been learning well from Big Tobacco, which employed a panoply of shady but highly successful public relations tactics to fend off changes to its business for generations.
One of the things I said in my testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee on June 24 is that the health insurance industry engages in duplicitous public relations campaigns to influence public opinion and the debate on health care reform. By that I mean there are campaigns they want you to you know about, and those they don't.
When you hear insurance company executives talk about how much they support health care reform and can be counted on by the President and Congress to be there for them, that's the campaign they want you to be aware of. I call it their PR charm offensive.
When you read or hear someone other than an insurance company executive -- including members of Congress -- trash some aspect of reform the industry doesn't like, such as the creation of a public health insurance option, there's a better-than-even chance that person is shilling for the industry. That's the PR campaign the industry doesn't want you to know about.
The public relations and lobbying firms that work for the industry plan and carry out those deception-based campaigns, and supply the shills with talking points. One of many tactics they use is to get people who are ideologically in sync with the industry's agenda to turn those talking points into letters to the editor.
An example of a letter that contained many of the industry's messages appeared in the June 27 edition of the New York Times.
The writer, Pete Petersen, identified as an employee benefits consultant for small employers, took issue with a June 20 Times editorial, which noted that, like Medicare, "a public plan (health insurance) plan would have lower administrative expenses than private plans."
Mr. Petersen claimed that the Medicare program is a poor example of an efficient government program because it is administered by the private sector. While it is true that the government contracts with private companies to handle claims, the reason Medicare has such low administrative costs is because it does not have the unnecessary overhead expenses private insurers have, such as costs associated with sales, marketing and underwriting.
Mr. Peterson also wrote that Medicaid, Champus and state CHIPs "that are administered by federal, state and municipal authorities" average 26 percent in administrative costs. What he did not mention is that in many if not most cases, those authorities have turned those programs over to the insurance industry to run. Private insurers' involvement in those programs is much greater than in the Medicare program. That helps explain why they have higher administrative costs.
Mr. Peterson also claimed that, according to a 2006 PricewaterhouseCoopers study, "86 cents of every premium dollar goes directly toward paying for medical services." What he does not disclose is that America's Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry's biggest trade and lobbying group, commissioned that study. A 2008 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers that was not paid for by the insurance industry tells a different and more revealing story. That study reveals that the percentage of premium dollars going to pay for medical care has fallen from more than 95 percent to slightly more than 80 percent since 1993.
For another great example of how the insurance industry uses its allies to flood newspapers with letters to the editor, read Trudy Lieberman's April blog post for Columbia Journalism Review. She discloses how an alert editorial page editor at the North Andover, Massachusetts Eagle-Tribune caught the industry red-handed.
21 Comments so far
Show AllLike this is news to the true Progressives on this site.
The use of trolls or drones or whatever term best suits these creeps has obviously become standard practice for any organization or business trying to deceive the public. As I pointed out the other day in a post about Whole Foods, the trend has even saturated local networks.
We'll need to put together a seminar on the practices of counter-posting.
We can discuss the traits of such posts which mark them as trolls. One example would be the use of summary or conclusionary arguments without supporting logic or detail.
Another would be substantiating their claims through the reference to obvious "ad hoc" websites which are created by the deceiving organization but under another name so as to appear disinterested (you see a lot of these in the phony health and sexual aid industries).
Of course, there are also the brazen attempts to use clearly biased sites for the same purpose.
There are many other charactersitics that we can list just as there are various styles of counter-posting - passive versus aggressive, for example.
q
You don't need an MBA to understand the concept of the "integrated corporation" whereby a corporation that owns a tobacco company, junk food company, medical insurance company and drug company gets the same customers four times.
Corporate capitalism cares nothing about the product...the product is just the lubricant that keeps the money flowing smoothly.
Capitalism is also a completley amoral syatem. They would be process the global poor into hamburger for consumption by the rich if there weren't laws against murder. Never forget this.
How true. In china the profit motive permits skinning dogs and cats for their pelts and using "certain parts" for food. They use prisoner bodies for transplant organs to the highest bidder. This is really getting crazy. Perhaps Voltaire was right when he said, "Hell is other people".
Mr. Potter is right on all counts but there is a minor detail he doesn't mention. His personal fortune is due to amoral, death producing practices. If he really wants to "do the right thing", he must divest himself of every asset involved with the system and vow to live a middle class, low carbon footprint lifestyle. After selling 90% of his property and securities, he must set up a fund to provide health care for the non-insured and underinsured. He must get a feed from insurance corporations of people being denied claims and pay said individual's medical costs and finance lawyers to sue the insurance corporations for rejecting claims.
Mr. Potter, if you can't stop being rich, then shut the fuck up. You aren't telling us anything new about the PR game these assholes play and their phony letter writers. Put your money where your mouth is, Mr. Potter.
Why the reference to China? Do you imagine that the largest single speculator in American dollars and the governors of the single largest collection of sweatshops for the American market is "socialist" or "communist" or similar?
Were Mr. Potter rich (I have no idea), what difference specifically would that make with the idea or the right to speak?
R A Y,
Please add even more widely serving:
__ "F u n e r a l",
__ "S e w e r", and
__ "P r i s o n"
systems to that "integrated" oligarchy.
Thank you.
N.
The Health Care Mafia is awash in cash and is spending millions daily to KILL any meaningful reform. They've already done this for the most part by getting Single payer killed even before the game started . Now we've moved on to gutting any Real so called Public Option ideas and replacing them with plans that further line the pockets of the same Health Care Mafia Corps. that have caused much of this mess.
Health insurance companies and the Tobacco industry have one thing in common, and it's the most basic: they are both greedy and will do anything to protect their year end profits. It's so obvious, why are we even discussing it. America is all about greed. That's why it's so hard to get ANYTHING done in this land. Corporations will protect themselves, and it looks like there's not a damn thing we can do about it.
Ironic?
Hardly.
The health care and tobacco industries are both characterized by corporations that sacrifice human health for the sake of profit.
They are perfectly natural bedfellows.
And both should be abolished.
As q points out, this is nothing new. The democratic process is nothing but a PR stunt.
A moot point really: no form of Single Payer is "on the table" anyway, so whatever comes of this will only be a band-aid (what the Brits call a sticking plaster) to cover a gaping bloody wound.
Thanks for the Adam Curtis's The Trap link, posted elsewhere.
The Republicans are claiming that allowing a national health care choice is "SOCIALISM" because – get this – it will increase competition and lower costs too much. Why are we constantly allowing Republicans to rewrite our dictionaries?
Signed: Lawlessone [for more irreverence, see resistence-is-possible.blogspot.com]
Viva la Socialism!!
Does anyone else notice how pathetic those arguing for the status quo become? They can not make an intelligent arguement so they resort to the tired old tactics of FEAR which are no longer working.
So now what?
Understanding the very real hardships suffered by people because of the idiocy of those in power, it is frankly FUNNY to watch these people roll out their irrational "Rationale".
no doubt pjd412.we must always remember that money is an
addiction that is curable only by death! no other treatment
works!btw when you look at the amount of bribes er i mean campaign CONtributions obama took from these clowns you
have to realize how much pressure we are going to have to
exert to make a real change happen!
Naomi Klein was right in her most basic premise - strategies which work get used over and over and over again.
Wendell Potter left out that the anti-Kyoto people used Big Tobacco's strategy (and a few of their hired shrills) before the Medical Insurance Industry did.
The news you are not getting:
Jack Layton to talk health care at the White House
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090530/layton_washington_090530/20090530?hub=QPeriod
Transcript of Layton's speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington D.C (sadly we don't hear David Plouffe's intro):
http://www.ndp.ca/press/partnership-for-health-care-environment-economy
"Now – I didn’t come here to urge you to adopt Canada’s health care system. A good health care system reflects a country’s values, and each country’s values are different. In Canada our system embodies our values of equity, fairness and shared responsibility. Yours has to be a “Made in America” health care system, one that shares your values."
And I got this in e-mail:
"Obama’s inner circle will be there. Premiers Dexter and Doer will be there. You won't want to miss HFX09 in Halifax, August 14-16."
What is Obama's inner circle doing at an NDP convention? And why is Anita Dunn listed as one of the speakers? Why is she hanging with the Party which was most responsible for Canada having single payer health care?
This article uses the same tactics as the tobacco industry that it purports to criticize.
It refers to the insurance companies as being the "health care industry". It ignores the fact that the "health care industry" consists of, guess what, health care providers; doctors, nurse, hospitals, etc, etc.
By attacking the insurance companies, which are easy targets, and referring to them as the "health care industry", they seek to generate criticism of the whole industry. Demonize one, demonize all.
From what I've seen, so far, the political debate has been all about money, and only pays lip service to the actual patients, and providers.
A rational health care system should be centered on the needs of the patient, and the actual providers. How can we ever have any effective health care system without the cooperation of the providers themselves ?
Personally, I think the notion that the government can provide a better health care system, cheaper, is not even rational.
This irrational system you are talking about, when tried, seems to work in the rest of the world. I guess the United States is different.
Sorry to hear that, you need to read more, watch TV less and travel outside the USA. For some reason, many other countries can do it very well, what is wrong with the USA? Why can't we do it when others have done a great job?
No worries for you though, Single Payer is not even on the table. So your insurance company friends can still make their millions in bonusus every year and we can pay the highest costs in the world for "health care". Who knows, if you are lucky you might even go bankrupt due to hospital bills.
You may consider the Health Insurance companies easy targets (because of recent reports of shoddy practices/coverage), but they will not go down without a fight.
You are right that the phrase "health care industry" lumps the Insurance companies in with doctors and nurses - which benefits the Insurance companies.
A government run insurer would be paying the doctors and nurses instead of the insurance companies - that is all single payer means.
The other issue is whether hospitals will be nonprofit or forprofit - the former associated with lower costs and better prospects for patients.
What do you know about the Romanow Report which looked into the question of Private Insurance companies?
Anyone watched Wendell Potter talking with Bill Moyers on PBS? Never mind that he made is career (and money) working for the insurance industry - we need more people to come out and expose the system for what it is. The 'system' includes those in Congress, btw.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/watch2.html
SheltonHall is correct when he picks up on the obvious attempt to villainize healthcare providers, while he lumps them in with the insurance industry. I'm a primary care doctor in rural West Virginia. The insurance industry doesn't represent me. And the AMA only represents a few high priced subspecialties and doesn't represents those of us that are actually out there taking care of people in our communities.
Hell is in the details and I'm sick of hearing about "healthcare reform" from shills that misrepresent to further some groups economic interests.
SheltonHall may find it hard to believe, but Medicare is administered much more effciently than private insurance, and yes, the Medicare intermediaries that actually process claims are private companies.
The larger issue is does it really matter that much whether a public or private bureaucracy trys to control healthcare delivery and dictate terms to individual patients and their doctors. The physician community spends a enormous amount of effort trying to get the right care to our patients already. Can any bureaaucracy help? The private bureaucracy are whores who want to interfere for money. The public bureaucracy wants to interfere out of a love of power, and an arrogance that says that they know better that the physician community. How many of those bureaucrats have actually taken on the one-on-one responsibility of healthcare for an individual patient? Then do it 25-30 times a day.
I work hard. I'd love the bureaucracy to help, but all they do is get in the way.