Look who’s behind the “Big Insurance” protests
***
Tomorrow in Minnesota, Obama-bots will gather for a “Big Insurance: We’re Sick of It” demonstration against UnitedHealthcare. Who’s behind it? The announcement is here. It’s a Who’s Who of left-wing astroturfers:
MoveOn? Check.
HCAN? Check.
SEIU? Check.
AFL-CIO? Check.
Van Jones’s Color of Change? Checkity-check-check.
MoveOn claims there are 102 rallies in the works.
No word yet on whether they’ll be protesting at the fund-raiser for Nancy Pelosi in Washington, D.C. being hosted by UnitedHealth care lobbyist Steve Elmendorf — or at the Washington, D.C. law and lobbying offices of Alston & Bird, where Obama health care advisor Tom Daschle consults for UnitedHealth.
Corporate Shills for Hope and Change get a pass.
***
The plan, via WashTimes:
The plan for a series of grass-roots demonstrations Tuesday to promote President Obama’s health care agenda calls for tightly scripted events and an “escalation” of efforts against “enemies” of reform.
Organizers insist there is no comparison to rowdy summer town hall meetings and recent “tea party” protests that have challenged White House policies.
But Health Care for America Now (HCAN), which is backed by a coalition of labor unions and liberal groups including ACORN and MoveOn.org, organized the protests to target insurance companies and drafted the plan, which describes the demonstrations as part of its “insurance enemies project.”
The document, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, details specific talking points, tactics, props and strategies to stage the protests. It lists goals that include action that “mobilizes our base by animating existing anger about private insurers.”
The HCAN field plan dictates that each protest will include a minimum of 30 participants, target only health care insurers CIGNA, WellPoint and United Health Care and showcase what it calls “victims,” or people who have either lost insurance, can’t afford it or were denied coverage because of pre-existing medical conditions.
“We built a campaign to win health care reform and that is exactly what we are working on,” said HCAN national spokeswoman Jacki Schechner, who authenticated the documents. But she asserted: “There is nothing top-down about this.”
Insert laugh track here.
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Categories: Health care, MoveOn.org, SEIU
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What time does the torchlight parade begin?
Since most of these types don’t have jobs and live off of the system they have the free time to hold their little feel good rallies on work days.
Will anybody show? Does anybody care?
Astroturf, define it …
Visited the link and did not notice that the rally was advanced as a ‘grassroots’ event vice an ‘astroturf’ event. In fact there is a big Move On dot org thingie-poo in the upper left hand corner.
It does not appear that anyone is hiding behind anything.
Visited the link and did not notice that the rally was advanced as a ‘grassroots’ event vice an ‘astroturf’ event. In fact there is a big Move On dot org thingie-poo in the upper left hand corner.
It does not appear that anyone is hiding behind anything.
All of these Obamabots like “MoveOn.org” have come from the same left wing pig swill bucket . . . if you’ve heard one of them you’ve heard all of them.
Is this paid time for the union workers that show up? Or strictly “voluntary”?
MoveOn.org needs an enemy to rail against, but they’re not clear on who their enemies really are.
I’m sick of move on.org and all their ilk.
It would be nice to rally against them.
Time for Move On.org to Move On….
Standby for glowing and extensive news coverage of these “grassroots support rallies” from the fringe media.
I wonder if they plan on setting up a woman crushing machine at the entrance. I can’t focus on my work with all of the tortured screams coming from the doctors offices on the floor below me. Can’t women get crushed without all of the racket? It’s very distracting.
What these liars fail to mention is insurance companies paid out hundreds of billions of dollars in claims. Claims they insured. Without their paying of those claims millions of people would be bankrupted by medical costs.
I am working at a client site in Newark and we just got word in our emails that there will a protest here at the site I am at.
Wish I had my camera with me and I forgot to wear my “Don’t Tread On Me” flag pin too.
Soros … big surprise.
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
bet the media notices this crock.
Will these be the kind of demonstrations where the protester-to-media ratio will be nearly 1:1? If they want to use any anti-Pelosi signs, I’m sure their conservative neighbors will be glad to lend them theirs.
Big insurance???? Please.
Liberal playbook: to demonize anything put the word ‘big’ in front of it.
You’d think with Soro’s billions they could come up with something new.
I see front page coverage by the New York Times the day after, followed by hour-long specials interviewing the “protesters” on MSNBC, CNN, CBS, ABC, and NBC. Followed by a movie made of the occasion, with required viewing by the hoi polloi.
MoveOn vs. Big Insurance?
Doesn’t George Soros own Progressive?
If so – it kind of reminds me of an old SNL joke about Sammy Davis Jr. learning that the UN equated Zionism with racism – wherby he quipped “Great – now I can hate myself”.
soros the clown is having his lounge lizards go hold rallies against insurance companies, what hypocrites.
I went to the MoveOn website to see who they are protesting in my area, if anybody and I found out they have targeted Cigna. Here is what makes this so stupid. I don’t know how they decided on Cigna since it is the smallest and the newest health insurance company to do business in GA. They entered the market in June of this year, but given the directions they gave on the link to the individual protest, if you take the MARTA, the Atlanta public transportation like they suggest, when you come out of the train station you are right at the biggest health insurance company in GA. So they are going to walk right by the biggest insurance company for a couple of blocks and go protest at the smallest. In the rain no less.
Rational critical thinking really isn’t their strong suit is it.
I have started my own health insurance company, and am denying health insurance to EVERYONE. So why am I not making hundreds of billions of dollars from denying people?
I think they’re logic is a bit faulty.
Well, it appears the morons at MoveOn.org have fooled zyzzyg. I doubt he would recognize “AstroTurf” if it was installed on his bum…
I like it. Is this trademarked yet???
It would be funny if the Obama, Inc., perpetual campaign weren’t plotting to take over the whole damn
countryworld.Any bets on how different the drive-by media coverage will be as compared to the Tea Parties?
Uh….riiiiiiight.
Monolithic Insurance (government) is good?
Big Insurance (free enterprise) is bad?
A moron and it’s liberty are soon parted.
Malpractice insurance is the issue that Odumba keeps ignoring, mainly because his trial-lawyer pals want him to. If his plan doesn’t include tort reform as the first priority, it’s dead on arrival.
Ack! I meant ‘their’, not ‘they’re’.
we have had at LEAST 5 telephone calls from these jerks in the last few days, harrassment, plain and simple. “Big Health care blah blah blabitty blah”
http://pol.moveon.org/sickofit/guide.html a handy guide. They give you the materials/signs to print out, even. Yep, our movement and march on DC was “astroturf” and theirs is “grassroots” Ayuh.
Perhaps this is Tom Daschle’s last Huh-rah? The lad is 62 years old and by his own book old enough to start thinking of dying. Yes Dear Limousine Liberal Majority Leader it is time for you to take the Long Walk into the wilderness–perhaps catch an ice flow (white canoe). If Global Warming has melted all the ice flows a Styrofoam chest would do.
Show us the way Dear Limousine Liberal Majority Leader Tom Daschle–just file your taxes first. Suicide Is Painless – Mr. Majority Leader.
Tell me… how much did health insurance costs go down in Texas after they instituted med mal reform?
Hint: They didn’t. In fact Texas has the 10th highest paycheck-to-premium ratio in the country.
Tell me…what percent of overall health care cost in the US are made up of malpractice insurance premiums?
Hint: about 2%.
I keep saying this but I will say it again. Tort reform is a canard. Its primary useful function in this debate is as a bargaining chip.
One bit of odd about this:
These groups are marching at UnitedHeathcare. AARP (remember them?) has an insurance plan with United. And AARP, supposedly, supports the President’s plan. What’s up with this?
GRASS-ROOTS! Grass roots would be the “rowdy” people they referred to. I’m starting to think that all Libs are in fact, completly insane. FROM THE TOP DOWN! And back up again. The only way these people could buy a clue,is if was a government subsidized clue.
So what are we waiting for Chap?
Something that will put an actual dent in costs. It’s not like you could totally eliminate malpractice premiums. I think Texas’s malpractice premiums got lowered by about 25% (and that was only AFTER the government stepped in and threatened the insurers because they had not voluntarily dropped their rates commensurate with their lower risk). So for anyone to say that something which may, at best, have about .5% influence on medical costs as a “first priority” is silly.
Of course Chap doesn’t say anything about the costs of defensive medicine, such as CYA tests, and other practices that drive up health care costs and premiums.
Nahhh…if Texas had so-so success with its reforms, the lesson is that no other state can try to do better, OR that the feds could take a different approach.
Suppose “all” we could save annually were five percent. In a trillion-dollar sector of the economy that’s 50 BILLION dollars that would NOT be wasted, but could be used for productive medical purposes, or even help fund catastrophic insurance.
But for chap? Nothin’ to see here, folks, move on….
There is virtually nothing. I went back and looked at the stats for Texas and actually premiums did not even come down by 25% It was more like 15%. So we are talking about 15% of 2% for a grand total of… one third of one percent!!! WOO HOO!! Break out the champagne!
And, in fact, in Texas after the caps were put in the insurance companies still tried to RAISE their rates. Until the government stepped in.
One can be perfectly happy to support med mal reform for any number of reasons. But deluding yourself into thinking that it is in any way shape or form going to put a serious dent in medical costs is counter productive to those that want to seriously address the issue.
And as far as the “defensive medicine”, if there were a link between that and tort reform, Texas would have seen a tangible decrease (or at least less of an increase) in medical costs, right? BUT THEY HAVE NOT. Spending on medical care in Texas has gone up as much or more than any other place in the country.
Also, if you think Texas is the only example, think again. California has had a cap since 1975. Has it worked there?
Even the insurers admit that caps are useless in lowering costs. GE Medical, which is the largest Med Mal insurer admitted that: