The Insurance Lobby's Strategy: Class Warfare from Above

One of the most timeworn and tiresome tactics of the right is to accuse anyone who talks publicly about the widening gap between rich and poor, the tax privileges of the affluent, or any other morally significant economic issue of engaging in "class warfare." The device usually achieves its desired effect: the perpetrator cowers in fear and never makes the same mistake again.

Last month, Senator Ben Nelson borrowed from his Republican colleagues' playbook when he referred to the proposal out of the House to raise taxes on wealthy Americans to fund health care reform as "class warfare." If class antagonism is really a concern of Senator Nelson's, then he should take another look at the campaign being conducted by his friends in the insurance industry. The right wingers and their corporate backers are waging a political battle over health care reform that is socially divisive, rhetorically caustic, and possibly physically dangerous. Call it "class warfare from above."

At a recent town hall, Congressman Paul Broun, Republican of Georgia, stoked up the angry crowd before him by referring to a "socialistic elite" in Washington, DC conspiring to use pandemic disease or natural disaster as a pretext to declare martial law. It's easy to dismiss this kind of idiotic showmanship as fringe lunacy. But it benefits us more to understand it.

Whenever corporations have found themselves faced with real threats to their profit-making power, they have responded by fomenting social division and turning worker upon worker. It happened throughout the early history of the American labor movement, when politicians conspired with bosses to brand striking union workers as Communist agents of the Soviet Union. It happened in the 1970s when grape growers in California recruited Teamsters to break the picket lines of Cesar Chavez' farm workers. The tactic continues today, as right-wing Republicans and their corporate benefactors point to immigrant labor as the source of the economic insecurity of the working class, instead of the Wall Street magnates who have bankrupted the U.S. economy.

These town hall fiascos are simply more of the same. The insurance lobby and their proxies in the GOP are using red-baiting techniques that are as old as Communism itself to brand working Americans who support reform as "un-American." They're deliberately conflating the narrow interests of corporate behemoths with the cherished values of our American heritage, implying that those who threaten those corporate interests are in the service of some insidious and non-American ideology.

As throughout history, rather than speak for themselves, these insurance companies are channeling their propaganda through the more "credible" messengers of supposedly regular, everyday, outraged Americans. But as hostile and odious as many of these "protesters" are, they are not the real enemies of American working families. By the looks of them, most of these provocateurs are workers themselves, and will benefit greatly from reform, whether they know it or not.

Rather, it is the billionaire insurance executives who are bankrolling the effort who deserve our scrutiny. It is these corporate moguls who stand to gain by maintaining a system that generates profits by denying patients care, not uninsured town hall protesters who have to pass the hat to pay for their own care.

Whatever you think of the White House's approach to health care reform, President Obama has provided us with the chance to have a real national discussion on an issue of profound importance that has been neglected for 15 years. This is a far more important topic than the lunatic rants of misinformed zealots funded by corporate lobbying firms. We can't let the insurance lobby's latest tactic of distraction-by-proxy prevent us from reaching the working families of America. They stand to suffer too greatly from the failure of reform for us to be fooled by this ridiculous charade.

Follow Leighton Woodhouse on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lwoodhouse

Comments

[seanseamour]

Yes they are waging reverse class warfare but we can blunt their effort if we all respond to Robert Reich's call for a march on Washington, I can understand those that feel disillusioned by President Obama's consensus strategy, his effort to bring about change without tearing the country apart, and the seemingly weak position faced with such ruthless dishonorable and dishonest tactics played by opponents, but this march is critical for the legislators on both sides of the aisle to realize they cannot ignore public opinion. This cannot be a business as usual "fill my PAC" process, the future of too many lives is at stake, and don't feel you are not concerned because you have HC, both sides of the aisle know cost will double in the next seven years while your revenues (beyond the 5%) have diminished in the last 8. We need democracy not corporate oligarchy.

[WorkingClass]

Very refreshing. A little class war 101 for the Democrats.

[SeattleDeadhead]

Yes, the situation you describe is almost exactly the same thing gay marriage and abortion supporters do to those who disagree with them. They call them names and call them "intolerant" for having a different opinion.

For us thinking conservatives (it's not an oxymoron), we are well aware that Wall St. bankers and money mgrs ruined the economy almost by their very lonesome (abetted by regular Americans who are financial dolts). Nor are we slaves or shills for the insurance industry. What those of you on the left cannot seem to understand is that we simply do not trust the gov't to get health care right. Sure, the ins cos. need "competition" but competition is limited state by state where insurance is regulated and in most states the "Blues" dominate the health ins market. If state legislatures and ins regulators stopped requiring "Cadillac" coverage and allowed more basic plans or the HSA+catastrophic option, many "uninsured" (the young immortals) would participate in the system.

In addition, I have heard literally nothing about how any of this legislation will actually improve health. With over 1/2 the population overweight or obese, this is just another "bailout" for the irresponsible.

Why does anyone believe that the gov't would act differently than an insurance company? If the gov't doesn't act like an insurance company, costs will skyrocket, like they have with Medicare and the result is squeezing doctors, hospitals and other providers. Health care/health insurance is not a "right" nor entitlement.

[AndyBitMeAgain]

Absolutely, just keep the gov't out. We have much more power as individual citizens.

Here, write to United Healthcare and complain:

http://www.uhc.com/contact_us.htm

Be sure to use all caps. That will scare them to death.

[suzukimom]

Medicare has had slower rate of growth in costs per capita than private insurance even though Medicare covers one of the highest risk groups in the country. The growth in cost of care in Medicare has been 8.8% vs 9.9% for private insurers-proving that it is possible to contain costs under a government system of reimbursement.

As far as stressors in the system for providers, dealing with private insurance companies when trying to provide care is much harder than dealing with Medicare. My husband is a surgeon, and he says he would much rather deal with Medicare. It seems that the government operates with greater integrity and commitment to providing care for patients than corporations who would kill us for profits. What else is there to expect from a system that is responsible for the deaths of more than 18,000 Americans every year. Consider that our current healthcare system, controlled by insurance companies, is responsible for loss of life equivalent to SIX World Trade Center attacks every single year. I guess we should call the insurance companies terrorists.

[teapot90]

Deadhead, seems you stick to Reagan's maxim, that Government would "mess up a 2-car parade"

Clinton used that phrase recently in perhaps his best speech. Well worth 53 minutes to study: http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2009/08/13/HP/A/22213/2009+Netroots+Nation+Convention.aspx

However, the idea that Government will get it wrong in healthcare is disputed by the existence and long-standing value of both Medicare and VA care. But it's hard not to see government as wasteful and foolish when regulatory agencies are staffed by people who themselves hate those agencies (i.e. big business backing Republicans) and directors are installed who want nothing more than for those agencies to flounder and fail, and thus perpetuate the myth that government is no good.

In a Democracy the Government MUST be good, because it is ours. Our job is to make it good.

It's time to peel the truth away from the lies giant corporations and their lobbies have sold us. The New Deal worked. Its regulations kept us out of depressions for 60+ years, thru realistic and sustainable models of growth. Only after Reagans followers rewrote history and demolished New Deal regulations did America fall down the speculators' rabbit hole again. By the way health care is indeed a "right" as you put it. Every other modern nation, and a lot of the not so modern nations look at it that way, as do 80+ percent of Americans.

[BobLablah]

Actually it is class warfare so what's wrong with calling it class warfare? I have no problem with you saying you want to take more of money and give it to others - why is that a problem for you? And why do you have a problem when I say I don't want you to take more of my money?

[WorkingClass]

I couldn't agree more Mr. Bob. We are all involved in a class war. And the time has come for the working class to start fighting back.