United Health Group Encouraging Employees To Lobby Politicians, Attend Tea Parties
The health insurance cartel has shown that it is willing to shell out tens of millions of dollars and fight to the death to stop meaningful health care reform. One giant of the industry, United Health Group, is going so far as to actually encourage their own employees to educate themselves in anti-reform talking points, and attend tea parties held by a religious extremist. From TPM:
Last week, UnitedHealth Group--the second largest health insurance company in the country--sent out a letter to its employees urging them to call UHG's United for Health Reform Advocacy Hotline to speak with an advocacy specialist about health care reform. The advocacy specialist, according to the letter, is there to help UHG employees write personalized messages to elected officials, and to arm them with talking points to use at local events in order to better oppose the public health insurance option.
However, a source who's insured by UHG--and who also obtained the letter--called the hotline on Tuesday and says the company directed him to an events list hosted by the right wing America's Independent Party, and suggested he attend an anti-health care reform tea party sponsored by religious fundamentalist Dave Daubenmire, scheduled for today outside the office of Blue Dog Rep. Zack Space (D-OH). Read on...
United claims to be a partner in health care reform, but as d-day puts it they're in it to win it:
Giant insurers like United Health Group see value in enabling right-wing shriek-fests. They’ll either derail reform, and keep a status quo that earned the CEO $124.8 million in 2005, or get a workable, sham “reform” without a public option that would essentially funnel government subsidies to their company. They have a good racket going, and they want to keep it. Read on...
The United Corporate State of America!
Serfs salute, one - two - three!
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Serfs, now we will sing the Corporate State Anthem…
America the Dutiful
altogether now…
one - two - three - SING!
O dutiful for rapacious skies,
For modified genetics of grain,
For blasted mountaintop travesties
Above the sullen plain!
America! America!
Sachs shed their grace on thee
And crown thy should with Corporatehood
From sea to pining sea!
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
there is a BIG gaping hole in this story.
big.
gaping.
failing to mention the fact that hemsley, the ceo of united health, has been secretly meeting with obama misses the true deceit. not to mention the connection between this organization and tom daschle, obama's choice to b point man in health reform.
Stephen J. Hemsley – CEO, United Healthcare
the Obama administration again is blocking the public from seeing White House visitor logs, this time refusing to disclose meetings with health care executives. Tonight, less than an hour before his news conference on health care, he released some of the information only after a nonprofit group filed a federal lawsuit.
Stephen J. Hemsley visited the White House on May 15 and 22.
http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/41568
Business Week magazine, which proclaimed recently that “The Health Insurers Have Already Won” reported that the CEO of UnitedHealth, Stephen J. Hemsley, met with the President half a dozen times.
http://www.counterpunch.org/nader08182009.html
In August 2007, the company {united healthcare] hired Sommer, who previously headed global lobbying for Goldman Sachs (GS). He quickly built a new Washington team of former congressional aides and other K Street operatives. One key acquisition: Cory Alexander, former chief of staff for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), an influential moderate Democrat. Alexander had been lobbying for the huge mortgage financier Fannie Mae (FNM). Today, Sommer directs a team of nearly 50 people from UnitedHealth's spacious Washington office on Pennsylvania Avenue, equidistant between the Capitol and White House. The company spent more than $3.4 million on in-house and outside lobbying in the first half of 2009.
Sommer has retained such influential outsiders as Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Senate Leader who now works for the large law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird. Daschle, a liberal from South Dakota, dropped out of the running to be Obama's Secretary of Health & Human Services after disclosures that he failed to pay taxes on perks given to him by a private client. He advised UnitedHealth in 2007 and 2008 and resumed that role this year. Daschle personally advocates a government-run competitor to private insurers. But he sells his expertise to UnitedHealth, which opposes any such public insurance plan. Among the services Daschle offers are tips on the personalities and policy proclivities of members of Congress he has known for decades.
http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/co...
Why would a health group want this, when they have Obama's ear....literally? This doesn't make sense at all.
reform healthcare---the 'secret' meetings sound silly to me..He has met with Pharma CEO's and other HC exe's...
United owns the Lewin Group---the republican 'go to'for information..and stacked Stats..
You can not know what is out there unless you get people to the table!
HC's are sooo frightened of real regulation that they would be willing to come to the table..Daschle could facilitate that but it does NOT MEAN THERE IS A DEAL IN THE WORKS!!!!!!
Hold your powder..lets see what comes out! Quit with the republican conspiracy meme claims ---makes us look like obstructionists!
...2005 must have been a tough year for United's CEO. He only knocked down a miserly $125 million. Poor bastaaahhhddd! Makes me wonder how do these people manage to get by? And, you socialists wanna make them compete with a public option? Have you pinkos no compassion for the wealthy, well-to-do, and well connected? What's next, huh? You'll want them to pay their share of taxes, right? Commies...always out to put the screws to the CEO who is just barely scrapin' by on $125 million. It just ain't right!
It's a jungle out there, I tell ya.
Whew...tonight, I have a lot upon my mind...concerning Americans without jobs, the ability to have decent Health Care...and why we can not.
Corporate Monopolies have not delivered "better products"...they now OWN your last choices of what you purchase, whether it be what you watch, the staples you buy and what you eat. "Corporates" have sealed their pact worldwide, and you haven't a clue as to what is in the food they are selling.
Example: Look at what the past 15 or more years that the "world wide trade agreements" (I.E. "New World Order") has delivered this Nation:
Toys filled with toxic crap (including lead, arsenic, etc....). for the sake of profit for the shareholders (and NOT for your family). We are subjugated to poisonous products such as Christmas Tree Lights and Ornaments imported from China...labeled with warnings about LEAD exposure...something we as Americans decided were a Health Hazard long ago. The Corporates have decimated our once powerful manufacturing base. Now, just about, any meaningful manufacturing job has been outsourced to countries that could not care less about what is safe or poisonous. We have no (or little) choice left but to become exposed to, once again, poisonous crap...but, hey...it's CHEAP, right?
When you no longer have gainful employment and income...cheap doesn't matter much.
We (the Greatest Nation and Lone Superpower) have tried to eliminate these poisons from exposure to our children, ourselves, our unborn, and our food chain...and they are now coming back, disguised as a inexpensive staple.
It's called "exploitation", or for a better analogy ..."outsourcing slavery"... all for CHEAP GOODS.
Why?
PROFIT.
The insidious part of it all is Corporations and shareholders do not care about your health, or the poisons they are "re"importing ...it's just PROFIT.
For those of you who once upon a time had a guaranteed PENSION and were enticed into "401k plans"...how is that working for you now?
Imagine if George W. had succeeded in getting you to "op-out" of Social Security and "investing " your last pittance of a retirement cushion into Wall Street? What would you have left now?
The Corporates have won, up until now...but I STILL have HOPE things will change.
Buy a Democrat, buy the best.
http://d.yimg.com/a/p/ap/20090820/capt.8b52be...
Status QuObama
Change you can Pretend in.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
He's playin' chess and has super duper secret plans!! /snark
And.. he's counted to infinity...twice!
It's part of a maze...a big corporate park maze down the road from me. They are surrounded by lots of us here in Hopkins, Mtka, St. Louis Pk, Eden Praire who cannot partake of the barest of health care.
Yeah, here.
Love from your uninsured since 2002 neighbor....you bast#$ds
I can't imagine it playing nice.
United Health Group, is going so far as to actually encourage their own employees to educate themselves in anti-reform talking points,
You do understand that this is fairly common practice across many industries? I work in health care and get e-mails all the time asking me to meet with staff and encourage them to voice their opinions on various legislation to their reps. Why is that- "going so far" as though they have no right to voice opinion?
Of course, they're going to try to leverage the expertise of people in their industry to fight legislation that they feel will harm them.
Mark Warner (D-VA), a freshman, is up to his ears with UHG. His website reads more like a promotional PR site for the health Insurance industry, than a senator's. He started out to side with the Bribe-O-Crats, but has received a lot of negative criticism from his constituents. If he votes with the insurance industry, he's going to be a one-termer for sure. He was a good governor, but is turning out to be a deep disappointment as a senator.
BTW, I'm not sure how effective company-orchestrated employee lobbying efforts are. I work in mega-corporate Amerika, and it's been my observation that when the higher ups try and orchestrate a "grassroots" employee-based lobbying campaigns, most of the employees recognize the attempt for what it is: cynical self-serving bullshit that rarely is aligned with the employees' best interests. The only thing such bogus efforts do is further reduce the already minimal respect that the majority of employees have for the clowns who run their companies. For every employee that takes them up on the "request" to lobby their lawmaker, 100 others resolve that hell will freeze over before they'll act as the company's political pawn. In my own case, I write my congress critters and tell them that my employer has asked me to put pressure on them to vote for the company's usually anti-social interests. I warn them that they are possibly going to be flooded with such requests. I then follow that disclosure with an epistle about why they should do exactly the opposite, closing with a warning that if they sell the People down the river, not only will they never get another vote from me, but I will work diligently to see them replaced. If the congress critter in question should turn around and rat me out to my employer, hopefully my employer would respond with retaliation against me...in which case by the time I got done sueing them for retalliation, hostile work environment and the like, I'd be able to retire to a life of monied leisure: Go ahead, corporate would-be overlords, make my day.
The health Insurance industry employees have the same shitty deal as the rest of us, and are even more aquainted the the criminality of the insurance companies than is the general public. Of the total number of employees, I imagine they get few takers to do the corporation's bidding. I've got an idea that most of them hate their jobs and have to live daily with a heavy burden of shame that comes just from doing their jobs. It would be interesting to see a poll of strictly insurance industry workers who would like single-payer universal healthcare.
You know something? When I decide I need something and lets say, because I am a good shopper, decide that I will buy from one company rather then from another because of the price and quality. That's MY choice. That company is making a killing for whatever reason. I DON'T CARE. This is a free market!!!
If America is tired of paying for the prices of Health Care then do what we have always done!!! "BREAK THE MONOPOLIES" Stop passing Laws which enable the Insurance Companies so much POWER!
You Think That You Can't Afford Private Insurance? Wait until you get your TAX Bill! DO ANY OF YOU KNOW WHAT THE FEDERAL PAYROLL BUDGET IS RIGHT NOW?
I say that if you can't afford Health Care, then toss out your cell phones, get rid of your computer, go back to watching three channels on T.V., buy a decent used car for 1500.00 bucks and move into a house or an apartment that you can afford....ANY TAKERS?
If the fire department was run the same way as health care, they would save money by letting houses burn down.
Isn't AARP part of UHC? Doesn't AARP advertise on FOX? Is AARP playing both ends against the middle? I remember when the Medicare Prescription D Plan was in the works, the AARP really worked very hard for it. Now, they are supposed to be helping Obama, but they are also a FOX sponsor. What's going on with them? Something's fishy!
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