Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Big Insurance, Big Tobacco and You

http://www.prwatch.org/node/8482

The health care consulting firm the Lewin Group says that 114 million people may lose their employer-sponsored health insurance if Congress includes a "public option" in its health reform plan. Several Republican Congress members recently cited the figure in opposing a public health insurance option.

It's an alarming statistic, but it's not true.

The health insurance industry has indeed taken Big Tobacco's playbook and is expanding on it. If all goes according to Big Insurance's plans, people will be misled and frightened enough to doom themselves to a watered-down, cobbled-together "solution" to the health care crisis that will have little or no effect on corporate profits. The upside is that we can learn from past lessons and from dealing with the tobacco industry. We now know far more about corporate propaganda and lobbying campaigns that we used to. By this time, legislators, journalists and citizens should be able to see through the insurance industry's manipulative lobbying techniques and misleading claims and call them out for the self-serving propaganda that they are.

rest http://www.prwatch.org/node/8482


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