(This is the latest in a series as part of Brave New Films' Sick For Profit campaign. Follow us on Facebook.)
This week, the insurance industry let a bit of their guard down, as they ramped up their efforts to attack anything meaningful in health care reform. As the Los Angeles Times reported that negotiations in the Senate Finance Committee were turning the bill into a "bonanza" for insurers, the industry tried to cement those gains by using fake grassroots tactics to portray an imagined outcry against real reforms like the public option.
UnitedHealth Group, subject of a scathing profile by Keith Olbermann this week, admitted it was turning its employees into lobbyists by distributing anti-public option talking points to them, and encouraging them to engage in anti-reform protests.
The New York Times published a very nice press release from the desk of Humana, one of the nation's largest health insurance companies. The reporter interviewed a bunch of employees at Humana, all of whom were horrified to see themselves depicted as "villains" in the health care debate. I agree with Yves Smith, this is an absurd angle for a story, an extreme example of selection bias. The people who work at Humana probably have a sense that their employer, um, pays their salary, and thusly, what's good for the employer is probably good for them. Similarly, most people hold a favorable opinion of themselves just as a matter of getting through the day. Not to mention the fact that their understanding of the functioning of Humana is limited to their job description. It is not possible to gain much of a perspective on the health care debate or industry practices by asking a midlevel manager "Do you think you're the worst person alive?"
We've grown accustomed to recognizing astroturfing on the right. A corporate lobbyist sends letters to congress members forging the signatures and letterhead of local grassroots groups. Oil corporations create front groups to generate town-hall presence against legislation that could slow climate change. Health insurance companies fund "grassroots" activists to speak for them. Fox News encourages and exaggerates support for whatever the Republican Party tells it is needed. Astroturf is a good name for all of this because it is grassroots flipped upside down. It's people being organized to rally in demand of exactly what Republican congress members want them to demand.
But what about astroturfing on the left? How do we feel about that? Here's an example.
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