Rolling Stone has an excellent article that is required reading if you want to understand what’s really going on in the health care reform battle. The hotheaded “little people” of the summer of 2009 are getting PLAYED by rightwingers with everything to gain from obstructing reform and none of the pesky morals, ethics, or consciences that often get in the way of unbridled greed. For example:
The fourth group behind the town-hall protests, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, [was founded by] Rick Scott…the former CEO of Columbia/HCA, the world’s largest hospital conglomerate. Scott was ousted from the company after it was caught overbilling taxpayers for Medicare treatment; it eventually pleaded guilty to criminal fraud and paid a record $1.7 billion in penalties. Scott now runs a chain of urgent-care clinics that serve uninsured Americans fearful of being bankrupted by hospital emergency-room visits. “He is one of those people who’s gotten very, very, very rich off of sick people,” says Potter, the former CIGNA executive. “He doesn’t want that cash cow to go away — so that’s why you’re seeing all his money there.”
Indeed, Scott has bankrolled Conservatives for Patients’ Rights with more than $5 million of his own fortune. “We have invested a lot of time, energy and resources into educating Americans over the past several months about the dangers of government-run health care,” he boasted in August. “And I think we’re seeing some of the fruits of that campaign.” To block reform, Scott has also hired CRC Public Relations, the firm that orchestrated the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against John Kerry in 2004. CRC enjoys high-ranking connections to the right-wing establishment, with a client list including the RNC, the National Republican Senatorial and Congressional Committees, the Federalist Society, the Parents Television Council and the Christian Coalition.
There is more, much more, including tobacco companies that don’t want expanded coverage to be paid with taxes on their products, oil and gas billionaires who are looking down the road at Obama’s other policies and want to wound him now before it’s their turn to do battle, and hardline party hacks who just need the work. Do yourself a favor and read the excerpt online, then go out and buy the full hard copy.
If what you say about Scott is true, in an odd way it makes a point for those people who are against a health care bill so massive it takes 1000 pages to write it. Medicare/Medicaid fraud is, in fact, huge. Why add another government program that will also create the opportunity for additional massive fraud (remember the World Food Program scandal at the UN? Huge bureaucracies create great opportunities for dishonest people). And I don’t buy the idea that there are right-winger “actors” out there staging the tea parties. Although I have not attended any congressional open houses or rallies or marches, I have two additional reasons for opposing this particular (rather, these particular yet un-meshed pieces of legislation): 1) immediate tort reform would drastically bring down health care costs. Investigate the reforms done in Texas and the result. Democracts oppose tort reform (perhaps because it is from the wrong side of the aisle) because tort lawyers are 99.9% registered Democrats (by the way, John Edwards made his fortune off of sick people). 2) Interstate competition would lower health premiums (making them affordable to virtually everyone). Look at car insurance. That’s why Progressive, operating in many states, can often beat out GEICO or other companies….that’s why you enter you information on the internet to get competitive quotes for auto/home insurance. As long as the Democratic majority refuses to consider changes which are simpler (and thus will have fewer “unintended, unanticipated” negative impacts (which legislation always has) and more immediate, one has to question what the real agenda is. By the way, I am “just a housewife” and I don’t shout at people or carry plaquards made by other people. This is me talking.