A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

Health insurers secretly funded $10-$20 million in attack ads


Posted: Jan 14, 2010

By John Byrne
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 -- 9:09 am

Seen one of those TV ads attacking healthcare reform?

Chances are, it may have been paid for by a health insurance company funneling money through the US Chamber of Commerce -- who then funneled it to one of two front groups it created specifically aimed at derailing or watering down the Democrats' healthcare reform bill.

According to National Journal veteran investigative correspondent Peter Stone, some $10 to $20 million of health insurer money was funneled into the Chamber of Commerce, which then doled it out to its anti-healthcare groups, Campaign for Responsible Health Reform and Employers for a Healthy Economy.

The insurers who contributed to the anti-reform effort purportedly were: Aetna, Cigna, Humana, Kaiser Foundation Health Plans, UnitedHealth Group and Wellpoint.

Each insurer reportedly gave at least $1 million to the campaign, with some insurers contributions totaling in the multi-millions.

The remainder of the article (and examples of ads) can be found at:

http://rawstory.com/2010/01/health-insurers-secretly-funded-1020-million-attack-ads/

 

;

Dirty deeds, not dirt cheap - NJ

[ In Reply To ..]
I would like to see tv advertising severely limited. The tagline "paid for by" doesn't tell us squat anymore. It's easy to bury things in an organization formed solely to be a front for people who don't want their activities known.

We let the government datamine our personal communications. We gave away our privacy rights. Yet we allow cowards doing dirty deeds to hide behind 501's. We should extend the "truth in advertising" laws to cover this stuff and to allow us to know who is involved in such large expenditures of money for advertising.

NJ

Bucks that didn't go to folks like that poor woman - who has to re-use catheters!

[ In Reply To ..]
Bet that's one ad they weren't behind.

Similar Messages:


After Record Breaking Profits, Health Insurers Feb 12, 2010
Profits for five largest health insurers were up 56% in 2009. Let's hear a big round of applause for status quo. Just say no to health care reform and claim a sweeping partisan victory. What I want to know is how the obstructionists and their supporters sleep at night. http://blog.healthcareforamericanow.org/2010/02/11/insurers-enjoy-record-breaking-profits-as-they-cut-27-million-people-from-their-rolls/ ...

Health Law Turns Obama And Insurers Into AlliesNov 17, 2014
There is a lot of news today about this colossal failure called Obamacare. ...

Top Five Health Insurers Posted 56 Percent Profit Gains In 2009Feb 13, 2010
By John ByrneFriday, February 12th, 2010 -- 9:45 am If no health care overhaul passes Congress, health insurers may be in for a windfall -- and one far larger that most Americans probably realize. According to a study by a pro-health reform group published Thursday, the nation's largest five health insurance companies posted a 56 percent gain in 2009 profits over 2008. The insurers including Wellpoint, UnitedHealth, Cigna, Aetna and Humana, which cover the majority of Americans with insur ...

Health Insurers' Fast Food Holdings Raise FlagApr 16, 2010
(CBS)  The investments of large insurers of health, disability and long term care in fast food chains like McDonald's and Pizza Hut have raised the interest of a study in the American Journal of Public Health, reports CBS Radio News' John Hartge. The Harvard Medical School's Dr. Wesley Boyd, an author of the study, finds it ironic that these firms would invest nearly $2 billion in companies that sell food often linked to obesity and cardiovascular disease. "The insurance i ...

EPA Ends $1 Million Taxpayer Funded Gym MembershipJun 25, 2017
The Environmental Protection Agency has ended a nearly $1 million program that provided gym memberships for employees. The new administration under EPA administrator Scott Pruitt identified the gym memberships as an abuse of taxpayer dollars. Examples of the program's misuse included $15,000 for gym memberships for 37 EPA scientists in Las Vegas last year. "We have ended taxpayer-funded fitness centers at EPA; a program that was costing American taxpayers $900,000 per year," said EPA ...

Okay, Reuters Reports 2 Million Have Health Care And...Jan 10, 2014
...CGI has been replaced with another company for only $90M. Well, that's certainly positive news, eh? ...

Score A Few Million For The Health Care PresidentApr 30, 2014
In the previous years before Obamacare went into effect, I always had on average 1 report a day where the doc would dictate something to the effect "the patient did not come in because he had no insurance,"  or "the patient had run out of her medications and could not afford to refill," or "the patient left AMA (against medical advice) due to lack of coverage." The first change I saw was: Between 2013 and 2014, I noticed that there were dictations where the comment was made ...

If 20 Million People Lose Their Health InsuranceNov 09, 2016
What will that do to the health care industry and our jobs? ...

Study: If Supreme Court Guts Obamacare, 9.6 Million Will Lose Health InsuranceJan 09, 2015
January 8, 2015:  As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear a case that could prove to be a fatal blow against the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, a new study has concluded that the consequences of striking down the law's subsidies for low- and middle-income individuals will result in a sharp drop in the number of Americans with health insurance, as well as a steep rise in premiums.  Link:  http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-01-08/study- ...

Oh No! The Donald Is At It Again, Maybe SecretlyMay 30, 2012
. ...

U.S. Cities 'secretly Selected' For Importing MuslimsApr 10, 2015
Just a poster... ...

Obama Secretly Signs No Free Speech BillJan 01, 2014
Obama Secretly Signs No Free Speech Bill Long gone may the days be where the people of the United States have the right to express themselves freely under the First Amendment.  Obama just signed a bill into law secretly that allows for Secret Service to arrest anyone publicly protesting within their vicinity. The bill turned law, H.R. 347, has passed through congress with little objection from either side, or the American public.  This could be on account of ...

Exclusive: DOJ, IRS Secretly Probing Koch Brothers For Democrats Nov 09, 2014
"In the midst of the ongoing investigation of the alleged Internal Revenue Services (IRS) and Department of Justice (DOJ) collusion in targeting conservative and Tea Party organizations for added scrutiny when applying for tax-exempt status, a source in one of the DOJ’s law enforcement agencies claims the IRS and DOJ are both probing the finances of members of one of the nation’s wealthiest families. Their alleged crime? Financially supporting what are considered conservative ca ...

Obama Intel Agency Secretly Conducted Illegal SearchesMay 24, 2017
The National Security Agency under former President Barack Obama routinely violated American privacy protections while scouring through overseas intercepts and failed to disclose the extent of the problems until the final days before Donald Trump was elected president last fall, according to once top-secret documents that chronicle some of the most serious constitutional abuses to date by the U.S. intelligence community. More than 5 percent, or one out of every 20 searches seeking upstream In ...

Insurers Set To Raise Prices, Walk Away From ConsumersMar 07, 2010
This is why we need a public option. For all of those who have been against health care reform, I hope you have a lot of money because I'm afraid we are going to need a big savings account to continue our insurance premiums. Better be getting ready because it will happen.The market concentration for health insurance is so monopolized in some areas that insurance companies are willing to raise prices and lose customers in an effort to improve their bottom line, a leading insurance broker tol ...

The Real Reason Insurers Are Canceling PoliciesNov 20, 2013
A few years ago, when talking to the insurance coordinator person at my MTSO, I remember a comment she made about the new (yearly the insurance changed to either a new company or new, worse coverage that cost more) high deductible plan. She said, "It is so employees will be more invested in their care." At that point the high deductible policy was a new choice which luckily was not costing too much less than the other more comprehensive one. Now there would be few who could pay the premiums fo ...

White House Caught Secretly Airlifting $1.7 BILLION Taxpayer CashAug 03, 2016
What Donald Trump has proclaimed the worst deal ever made, may just have become worst-er. The shocking truth behind the US-Iran nuclear deal, as WSJ reports, is that John Kerry and the Obama Administration airlifted $1.7bn of cash in 'compromise' payments (read - bribe) to Tehran to ensure the release of 4 captured sailors coincidentally the same weekend as the signing of the nuclear deal. What Donald Trump has proclaimed the worst deal ever made, may just have become worst-er. ...

Whistleblower Reveals How Insurers Can Game Healthcare BillJan 21, 2010
By Brad JacobsonWednesday, January 20th, 2010 -- 10:42 am Though Senate bill cuts 'pre-existing conditions,' it still allows insurance companies to create 'pre-existing' categories to raise rates The Democrats' healthcare overhaul, billed as a monumental game-changer for Americans' health insurance coverage, provides numerous loopholes for health insurance companies which will allow them to raise rates to protect profit margins, a health insurance whistleblower sa ...

Obamacare Is Already Forcing Private Insurers To Lower Their PremiumsMay 11, 2013
Obamacare Is Already Forcing Private Insurers To Lower Their Premiums By Sy Mukherjee on May 10, 2013 at 12:00 pm President Obama signs the Affordable Care Act into law Looks like Obamacare is more “on track” than “train wreck.”  In a striking illustration of the promise that the health law holds for consumers, two Oregon private insurers vying to sell coverage on the state’s Obamacare insurance marketplace this October are  ...

Insurers Push Plans Limiting Patient Choice Of Doctors Jul 18, 2010
(These are the insurance companies, folks, NOT OBAMA.) Insurers Push Plans Limiting Patient Choice of Doctors   Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times By REED ABELSON Published: July 17, 2010 As the Obama administration begins to enact the new national health care law, the country’s biggest insurers are promoting affordable plans with reduced premiums that require participants to use a narrower selection of doctors or hospitals. The plans, being tested in places like San Diego ...

AIDS Patients In Obamacare Limbo As Insurers Reject ChecksFeb 08, 2014
See link. ...

Insurers Request Big Rate Hikes, Citing Medicaid (Obamacare)Jun 03, 2015
carriers on the Obamacare exchange are attributing proposed double-digit premium increases to next year’s private-market alterations to the New Hampshire Medicaid program. Minuteman Health Inc. — which entered the New Hampshire exchange market this year with the lowest premiums — has requested rate increases ranging from 42 to 51 percent for next year, according to healthcare.gov, the online exchange established by the Affordable Care Act. Maine Community Health Options asked for premiu ...

Walgreens, Insurers Push Expansion Of Virtual Doctor VisitsJun 11, 2015
see a doctor on their smartphones or laptops for everyday ailments once the nation's largest drugstore chain and two major insurers expand a budding push into virtual health care. Walgreens said Wednesday that it will offer a smartphone application that links doctor and patients virtually in 25 states by the end of the year. That growth comes as UnitedHealth Group and the Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurer Anthem prepare to make their own non-emergency telemedicine services available to abou ...

Health Care Reform Repeal Would Rob 4-Year-Old Jackson Whaley Of Health Security Jun 15, 2012
What happens when your ailing son is about to exhaust a lifetime of health insurance benefits before his third birthday? Kelly Whaley came dangerously close to finding out...... ...

"Koch Industries: Secretly Funding The Climate Denial Machine"Feb 09, 2013
Links to Greenpeace.org's updated report on their activies, plus to many other sources on their activites are given below. Billionaire oilman David Koch used to joke that Koch Industries was "the biggest company you've never heard of." Now the shroud of secrecy has thankfully been lifted, revealing the $67 million that he and his brother Charles have quietly funneled to climate-denial front groups that are working to delay policies and regulations aimed at stopping ...

Health Insurance Is A Poor Measure Of Health Care.Sep 14, 2011
On Tuesday, the Census Bureau released its annual report on health insurance coverage in the United States. News media widely misconstrued the data and presented the problems facing the nation's health care system through a distorted lens. Many major news outlets made a basic error when reporting on the Census Bureau study. The Los Angeles Times wrote that "the number of Americans with no health insurance rose in 2010 to 49.9 million from 49 million the year before." But the figure c ...

Insurers Profit On Medicare "float"Jan 20, 2011
Washington (AP): Private health insurance plans catering to Medicare recipients are making millions by taking money the government sends in advance - but isn't immediately needed - and using it to make investments, federal ivnvestigators say in a report obtained by The Associated Press. In financial parlance, it's called "playing the float." In contrast with another government program that also deals regularly with health insurers, MEDICARE LETS ITS PLANS KEEP THE CASH. An audit by ...

Some Soros Funded Groups And A TimelineMay 17, 2013
As IRS efforts targeting politically-conservative groups gained momentum, George Soros-funded liberal groups repeatedly called on the IRS to investigate conservative nonprofit organizations. While the first reported instances of extra IRS scrutiny for conservative groups began in Cincinnati in March of 2010, the attacks began to pick up steam on a national level soon after Soros-funded groups began firing off letters to the IRS in October of that year - following the Supreme Court's Citize ...

Soros Funded Pro-Immigration Group Jul 13, 2014
Their headline suggests that this is just the beginning of a highly orchestrated national effort: Event is Part of Nationwide Actions to Stop the Immigrant Lock-up Quota and Immigrant Detention This well financed email campaign was sent out from someone at Fitzgibbon Media, a progressive PR firm. Seems costly for another “grassroots” movement, but this is no low budget group. Sponsored by Soros’ Tides Foundation and sharing the same floor at a Washington DC office building with Jim ...

Obama's $4M Taxpayer-Funded Hawaii Vacation Nov 29, 2012
Note the "TAXPAYER-funded" vacation. All presidents take vacations, but none this extravagant during such a poor economic time. I guess it's okay, because after all, he "cares" about us. And at least he's "trying." http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2012/11/29/obama-slated-hawaii-cliff/ ...