Health Reform: AARP, Astroturf, and the Co-op Public Plan


Published On: August 21st, 2009

Here’s some of the news this morning from the health care debate:

Some of the elderly growing increasingly worried that an overhaul will come at a cost to Medicare, even though President Obama has repeatedly said that it will not, according to the New York Times.

AARP, the 40-million member organization that represents older Americans, has seen dissension among its members about health-care reform and 60,000 have quit the group since July 1, reports the WSJ. While Obama has mentioned AARP’s support for health reform as evidence that Medicare won’t be harmed, AARP says it has not endorsed any of the major health bills yet, though it does support health reform in general. Meanwhile, the group is running TV ads and holding meetings in over 80 towns this month to dispel rumors and inform members about health reform.

Meanwhile, “astroturfing” is rampant with health reform, according to Politico. Astroturfing, you ask? It’s the use of front groups in what are supposed to be grassroots political efforts. For instance, when turnout for town halls are organized by groups behind the scenes. Astroturfing appears to be bipartisan: Conservative group FreedomWorks has been accused of astroturfing because it uses corporate funding to support “tea party” protests. But Health Care for America Now, which supports the Obama administration, has $80 million in funding and the group is mostly made up of union members, according to Politico.

And, amid all the debate over the public option and health co-ops, former HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt argues that the co-op system that’s being described is essentially a government-run plan anyway. In his WSJ op-ed, Leavitt, who served under George W. Bush, says that a co-op as its being described now would be “federally controlled, federally funded, and federally staffed.” And, in his experience, “when Washington provides the money, names the directors and ultimately pays the bills, government controls health care.”

View post:
Health Reform: AARP, Astroturf, and the Co-op Public Plan

STOP PANIC ATTACKS - A Natural Technique To Stop Panic Attacks and Anxiety Fast!

Stop Panic Attacks
The technique I teach has been developed by me Joe Barry, a former sufferer of all too frequent panic attacks and GAD. I developed a completely natural approach to eliminating 100% of general anxiety and panic attacks. This may seem very hard to believe for someone who may have had this condition for some time but believe me the new information is now available to be free from anxiety. I will reveal the whole technique to you.

try-now

YouTube Video



Loading...


Did You Know Did you know:


Infant mortality rates offer a vivid portrait of disparities in health. Even at birth, children from racial and ethnic minorities suffer worse health outcomes, including a notably higher rate of death

Related Posts

  • Health Reform: Let’s Debate a Public Insurance Plan Again
    President Obama still supports having a government-backed health-insurance plan compete against private insurers. But if Congress passes a bill without a public plan, he might sign it ..
  • Kennedy Plan: Health Insurance Mandate, Public Option
    Ted Kennedy, long a health-care power broker, is stepping up his game in the Senate’s health-reform debate. Until now, most of the attention has focused on the Senate Finance Committee, led by Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley, which has released a series of high-profile reports on the health reform in the past few weeks. Now..
  • Dueling Estimates Over Popularity of a Public Health Plan
    One of the biggest questions gripping partisans in the health-reform debate is how many people could end up in a government-run health plan. Conservatives, who are against a public plan that would compete with private insurers, are touting a Lewin Group study that projects that more than 103 million Americans will move to a public..
  • CBO: Public Health Plan Would Enroll Less Than 5% of Americans
    So House Democrats just released their big health-reform bill . As expected, it includes a new, government-backed health plan — a plan that’s been among the most contentious topics in the health reform debate. As we were poring over the analysis out today from the CBO (the Congressional scorekeeper whose estimates are key in shaping..
  • Eli Lilly CEO Makes Case Against Public Health Insurance Plan
    Eli Lilly CEO John Lechleiter waded into the debate over a public health-insurance plan, saying today that such an option would create a “slippery slope” toward a day when all or most Americans would have government coverage. Leichleiter argued, much as the health-insurance industry has, that a public plan would have a huge advantage over..
  • Health Reform Flavor of the Day: The Opt-Out Public Option
    A few weeks back, the WSJ’s Wash Wire predicted that the phrase “public option” — DC shorthand for a new, government-backed health-insurance plan — could come to mean any of several different things as the health care debate rolls on. Here’s the version Democratic leaders in the Senate were kicking around today: Create a new..
Leave a comment
Comments are closed.
« Antidepressant Alternative for Pregnant Women: Shock Therapy For Harvard Biologists, Volleyball is Serious Business »