Advertising works. Successfully pushing a point of view, to influence the public with repeated media exposure, is a simple concept. That’s why Citizens United was a dangerous decision made by an activist conservative Supreme Court. They rejected the whole idea behind successful advertising campaigns. So should we be surprised that the health insurance industry successfully turned public opinion against their own best interest by resorting to a formula that works-advertising?
Hey tea party movement: SUCKERS!!!Thinkprogress: This morning, Bloomberg reporter Drew Armstrong broke an incredible story revealing that health insurance companies, like UnitedHealth and CIGNA, funneled $86.2 million into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2009 to pay for the Chamber’s multifaceted campaign to kill President Obama’s health reform legislation.
In January of this year, the National Journal’s Peter Stone reported that insurers had pumped $20 million into the Chamber for its anti-health reform campaign. Armstrong’s report exposes the true extent to which insurers worked to fool the public and defeat health reform.
The health insurance industry hatched a plan to fundamentally deceive the public, the press, and politicians. Instead of fighting reform tooth and nail, the insurance
industry worked to manipulate the process and ultimately kill reforms by adopting what ThinkProgress termed “The Duplicitous Campaign.”In public, health insurance lobbyists and executives promised to support reform and work closely with reform advocates.
In private, the health insurance industry worked with conservative think tanks and media, right-wing front groups, and highly ideological trade associations like the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber to kill the bill. By using third party groups and ideological cover, the health insurance industry sought to trick Americans into hating reform.
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