The Wonk Room

Rick Scott Regurgitates Clinton-Era Talking Points

Yesterday, NBC broadcast End of Patient Rights: The Human Consequences of Government Run Healthcare, a 30-minute ‘documentary’ produced by Rick Scott’s Conservatives For Patients Rights. The ad, which felt like a poorly designed infomercial slated for the witching hour, followed Rick Scott and former CNN producer Gene Randall as they traveled to Great Britain and Canada, interviewing patients, medical professionals, and academics about the deficiencies of single-payer health care.

Scott himself is a poor spokesperson for the consequences of health care rationing. As Lee Fang explains, Scott started the Hospital Corporation of America/Columbia Hospital Corporation, with the goal of doing for hospitals “what McDonald’s has done in the food business.” Through an aggressive strategy of rapid acquisitions and consolidation, Scott turned his business into one of the largest health care companies in the world. But by the time Scott resigned and the company reached a $1.7 billion fraud settlement with the federal government for systematically over-billing Medicare and stealing from taxpayers, HCA/Columbia had become infamous for doing what Scott now so loudly decries: rationing care. (Watch a short video about Scott here.)

Still, in 1993 and 1994, Scott successfully opposed President Clinton’s health reform efforts. Since then, the cost per person of American health care has more than doubled, with an annual growth rate regularly more than twice that of inflation. A growing number of Americans are struggling to afford health insurance, but Rick Scott is using the very same hollow rhetoric to oppose reform now, as he did then. Lee Fang has compiled this video:

Watch it:

Certain nefarious Democrats — we won’t tell you who — want to import British and Canadian health care into the United States, the infomercial argued. Should they succeed, Americans will lose access to their doctors and spend years on a government list, awaiting surgery.

But despite the “journalistic feel” and clear messaging, Rick Scott is no Billy Mays. For no matter how loud his message was, his point was still unconvincing. The documentary conflated deficiencies of the foreign health care systems with American reform efforts but failed to cite a single Democrat who advocates copy-and-pasting the British or Canadian examples; Scott didn’t explain which Democratic proposals would lead to rationed care or engage in the substance of the President’s principles. He presented the Democrats’ reforms not as they are, but as conservatives wish for them to be.

Corporate-Sponsored Patients United Now

After orchestrating and funding the so-called Tea Parties movement, Americans for Prosperity — a nationwide front group founded and funded by the right-wing polluter Koch Industries — is launching an ad campaign characterizing President Obama’s effort to reform the health care system as a government take-over that will ration care and care and deny treatments.

Americans for Prosperity is notorious for its fake grassroots efforts, funneling millions of dollars into conservative campaigns designed to undermine Democratic initiatives. As Lee Fang put it, “AFP is a professional AstroTurf machine”:

- Hosted ‘Drill Baby, Drill’ rallies around the country.

- Financed Joe the Plumber’s tour against the Employees’ Free Choice Act and other anti-EFCA rallies.

- Started NoStimulus.com, “a grassroots website that we hope will be a focal point for the widespread frustration ordinary Americans feel at the runaway government growth that we see during good economic times and bad.”

Now, operating under the name Patients United Now, Americans for Prosperity — which is mostly funded by large multinational corporations — is masquerading as an organic grassroots movement outraged over the Presidents health care proposals:

We are people just like you. We went to D.C. with questions about “reform”— because we all favor policies which keep insurance costs down and help those patients with pre-existing conditions get coverage. Buying “care insurance” should be like buying car insurance: flexible, transparent and simple. We support health care for the poor through Medicaid.

But what we found SHOCKED US: Radical solutions. Discussions behind closed doors. Patients like us NOT included, just big companies, lobbyists, unions and politicians.

For many in D.C. cutting costs means CUTTING CARE—-your care.

The effort provides cover or ‘grassroots clout’ for conservative politicians and activists to oppose the President’s health care initiative. But this collection of trumped-up charges, outright lies and complete fabrications makes little headway in critiquing the President’s actual proposal. Because just like all other peddlers of the “government take-over” critique — Frank Luntz, Conservatives for Patients Rights, Betsy McCaughey, and Sally Pipes — the goal is to define Obama’s proposal in their terms rather than to engage in a debate about health care or offer real solutions to the crisis. As Frank Luntz admitted to the New York Times, “we don’t know what he is proposing. We want to avoid ‘a Washington takeover.’”

A so-called “government-takeover” may be a personal ideological crusade for AFP — whose founders also established the conservative CATO organization — and its AstroTurf movement of corporate clients, but most Americans support greater government involvement in the health care system. A recent poll by Lake Research for Health Care For America Now shows that there is “intense and widespread support” for the choice of a public health insurance plan, with 73% of voters favoring a choice of a public or private plan, including large majorities of Democrats and independents (77% and 79%) but surprisingly, even a high plurality of Republicans (63%).

The cast of health care crisis deniers and stone throwers, whose constituency are only as large as their fund raising outreach efforts, are prominent not for their message, but for their coffers. Frank Luntz represents Blue Cross Blue Shield, CIGNA Dental Health and Pfizer. Conservatives for Patients Rights are funded by ‘undisclosed’ special interests and a $20 million personal investment from CEO Rick Scott, Betsy McCaughey sits on the board of a medical device company and Sally Pipes’ Pacific Research Institute receives money from Altria (formerly known as Philip Morris), Microsoft, Pfizer and ExxonMobil.

So if the question is, why do it? Why lie about the President’s efforts? Then the answer is a mix of ideological conservative zeal, political calculation — denying Democrats a victory on the issue — and businesses interest. Ultimately, these groups are expressing the voices and opinions of their particular backers — large corporations — not the American public.

Conservatives For Patients Rights Lies, Claims Comcast Pulled Down ‘Misleading’ HCAN Ads

Since March, Conservatives for Patients Rights (CPR) — headed by disgraced hospital CEO Rick Scott and represented by the same public relations firm that brought us the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth — has been actively distorting the health care reform debate.

While the health industry is trying to remain at the negotiating table, CPR is attacking the reform effort in a somewhat schizophrenic media campaign. The group has linked to progressive health care proposals from its website before running ads arguing that Democrats had no health care plan, conflating the budget resolution with health care reform legislation, and claiming that President Obama seeks to import Britain’s health care system into America.

Now the group that did so much research on Obama’s health care reform that it ended up attacking a non-existent health care proposal is soliciting contributions on the false premise that it scored a major victory over its ideological rival, Health Care For America Now, which has been running ads criticizing the group’s activities.

This morning, Rick Scott sent a letter to subscribers claiming that, “after reviewing HCAN’s ad, Comcast has determined that it is misleading and has been pulled off the air”:

As you may know, the liberal group Health Care for America Now recently started running a mudslinging TV ad against me personally. After reviewing HCAN’s ad, Comcast has determined that it is misleading and has been pulled off the air. …But they were taught a lesson. … Unfortunately, this surely won’t stop HCAN and its allies from continuing their campaign to use any means necessary to achieve government-run healthcare. In fact, HCAN reportedly plans to spend $40 million for big government healthcare. That’s why I need your help. Your contribution of $25, $50, $100, $250, $1000 or more to CPR Education*, our charitable affiliate, will help us to continue to get our message out and fight the misleading tactics of the advocates of government-run healthcare.

The letter came as a surprise to Health Care For America Now, who told me they had purchased a week of ads from May 6 to May 13 and assumed that their ad buy had just expired. The group contacted Comcast, who issued the following clarification: “Comcast has not pulled any ads produced by HCAN off our systems. HCAN has bought more airtime and the ad will soon return to the airwaves, Jason Rosenbaum of HCAN told me.

So CPR either never contacted Comcast or knowingly misrepresented — in fact, lied about — their statement. Either practice is emblematic of the group’s approach to the health care debate.

CPR Releases New Fearmongering Health Care Ad Comparing American Reform To Britain And Canada »

Conservatives For Patients rights, the Swift Boat Health Smear Group headed by disgraced health executive Rick Scott, has released a new ad, and POLITICO, in turn, has penned another blog post presenting the advertisement.

In what can best be described as a marriage of Betsy McCaughey (the government intends to control what’s in your medicine cabinet!) and Sally Pipes (Canadian health care is coming!), the ad warns that the Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research was modeled “after the national board that controls Britain’s health system” to institute “government control over your health care choices.” Two doctors testify to the horrors of medicine in Great Britain and Canada, respectively:

SCOTT: “Deep inside the stimulus bill, Congress buried an innocent sounding board: the Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research. It’s not so innocent – it’s the first step in government control over your health care choices. This federal council is modeled after the national board that control’s Britain’s health system. Listen to Britain’s Dr. Karol Sikora about what happens to patients once the government takes over.”

DR. SIKORA (GB): “They’ll lose their own choice, completely…lose control of their own destiny within the medical system.” [...]

DR. DAY (Canada) “Patients are languishing and suffering on wait lists, our own Supreme Court of Canada has stated that patients are actually dying as they wait for care…

Watch it:

Scared yet? Well, you shouldn’t be. As Media Matters Action Network explains here, and I’ve written here, here, and here, comparative effectiveness research will ensure that doctors and patients have access to information about treatment effectiveness without the filter of a drug industry representative. As Newt Gingrich explains, “today, only about 10 percent of all health care is based on evidence. That means that 90 percent of the care we receive is, basically, informed opinion. We need a rigorous, clear system to measure the costs, benefits and value of a given procedure, technology or drug.”

Most notably, Obama has rejected a British/Canadian-like single-payer reform and most policy makers are looking for a “uniquely American solution” that preserves the employer-sponsored system and creates a hybrid public-private partnership. In other words, American reforms would look a bit like the Swiss health system in which the government “leaves the provision of health care and health insurance in private hands” but creates a marketplace within which insurers can compete on price, and not avoid insuring the sickest patients.

But if we put the ad’s false comparison aside, CPR do raise two more important questions: 1) do the British and Canadian systems deliver inferior care, and 2) do these systems really ration care and restrict patient choice? More »« Less

Is Politico Shilling For Conservatives For Patients Rights?

Today, Politico publishes the third, in what seems to be a series of soft profiles of Conservatives for Patient’s Rights — that right-wing smear campaign dedicated to unraveling the Democrats’ reform agenda. CPR is very well becoming the GOP alternative to the Democratic proposal, and as such it elicits legitimate news interest.

But since the group is actively advertising on Politico’s website, the publication’s uncritical treatment of the Swift Boat Health Attack Group raises certain ethical concerns. While the paper did publish an Editor’s Note revealing that “Conservatives for Patients’ Rights purchased advertising space on POLITICO.com for this campaign” at the bottom of one article, its latest profile does not inform readers of the potential conflict of interest.

Today’s piece by Carrie Budoff Brown describes Scott as “a conservative health care champion” and cheerfully reports that Conservatives for Patients Rights will soon release a documentary “illustrating what he describes as the perils of public health care in Great Britain and Canada” that will ‘most likely’ make it “into TV ads” (and future Politico stories, to be sure).

Brown dives into Scott’s fantasy world without so much as informing the reader that the Democratic health care plans have only limited resemblance to the British or Canadian systems. She clearly defines Scott in his own terms — as a crusader for “choice, competition, accountability and personal responsibility” and helps Scott conflate health care reform with the problems of Great Britain’s system by reporting that Scott’s aides are circulating an article in which Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized for conditions at a government-owned hospital (again, without explaining how conditions at a British hospital relate to current reform proposals).

The irony of all this is striking, and it strikes Brown over the head. The Wonk Room has previously reported that as a hospital executive, Scott limited “choice” and “competition” by buying up “hospitals by the bucketful” and routinely placed profits ahead of “accountability” or quality of care. During Scott’s tenure at Columbia/HCA, his cost cutting methods threatened patient care and safety:

- Susan Marks, a technician at one of Scott’s hospitals, was forced to monitor 72 heart monitors by herself. Marks explained, “I have to. I’ve been told you either do it, or there’s the door.” [ABC News, 9/26/97]

- Scott downsized nursing staffs, created conditions where “babies were attended as infrequently as every three hours. Once, the only nurse caring for seven ill infants was so busy she failed to hear an alarm when a baby stopped breathing. A parent dashed to the baby and stimulated breathing, the state report said.” [New York Times, 5/11/97]

- Hospital workers in Florida complained, “gloves come in only one size, and rip easily.” In addition, California employees protested “filthy conditions,” and being “stretched to the limit” as Scott’s company slashed “the ratio of nurses to patients.” [Money Driven Medicine, pg. 119]

But Brown seems taken in by Scott’s “soft-spoken” style and in the vanilla-flavored interview that follows the write up, she asks him where Democrats could concede on the public health plan option, playfully presses him to identify his donors and pitches an open-ended question about his background as a hospital executive.

By any measure, Scott’s multi-million dollar investment in online advertising is legitimizing his group and their criticisms. And Politico is helping in more ways than one.

Conservatives For Patients Rights: Health Care Reform Is Like Wall Street Culture Of Greed

Conservatives For Patients Rights, the Swift Boat Health Attack Group funded by disgraced Columbia/HCA Healthcare CEO Richard Scott, is out with a new ad attacking Congress for financing health care reform in the budget:

Isn’t it amazing? Folks in Congress were shocked the plan they passed allowed those huge bonuses for AIG. Now some in Congress want to raise taxes and spend $634 billion dollars for the President’s healthcare overhaul without even seeing all the details of his plan. They just never seem to learn. Call Congress today. Tell them not to raise taxes to spend billions messing with your health care without knowing what they’re buying first.

Watch it:

The ad misunderstands the legislative process. The ad attacks Congress for spending money without “seeing all of the details of [Obama's] plan.” But Obama doesn’t write legislation; Congress does. Obama has laid out his priorities for health care reform and has shared his principles with Congressional leaders and the different stakeholders. Moreover, the budget is not the place for policy specifics; it provides a framework for Congress to pay for reform. The Budget will allocate an unspecified amount to a health care reserve fund, allowing Congressional committees of jurisdiction to develop specific bipartisan reform legislation. Anything Congress produces must be — in accordance with Budget Committee instructions — fully paid for within 10 years.

Of course, if detailing the plan could stop the attacks, then Scott would simply click the ‘Plans’ tab on his own group’s website and download Obama’s proposal or Sen. Max Baucus’ (D-MT) 98-page vision for reform.

But the details of the plan won’t matter. The Right will continue to box Obama’s proposal (which actually incorporates the values of competition and choice) into a familiar big-government narrative or attempt to confuse health reform with a Wall Street culture of greed. The goal here is to echo the same message of attack (over and over again) and hope it sticks. Define Obama’s proposal before he can define it himself.

CPR’s Rick Scott Holds Himself Up As A Model For Health Reform »

Today, Rick Scott, the front man and funder of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights (CPR), talked up his agenda with Kathryn Jean Lopez of the National Review. After being asked about his view of health care reform, Scott touted his experience as a hospital executive as a model:

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Why are you stepping up to the health-care plate now?

Richard L. Scott: America is ready to improve health care. I believe there needs to be a strong advocate for patients’ rights, someone who has worked in the health-care industry. I hope my experiences focusing on reducing costs and improving outcomes can help ensure that any health-care proposals that are implemented focus on choice, competition, accountability, and personal responsibility.

In 1987, Scott didn’t start his hospital business for the sake of improving the quality of care, but rather wanted to “do for hospitals … what McDonald’s has done in the food business.” Indeed, through an aggressive strategy of rapid acquisitions and consolidation, Scott made his Hospital Corporation of America/Columbia Hospital Corporation into one of the largest health care companies in the world. Forbes magazine noted Scott ruthlessly bought “hospitals by the bucketful and promised to squeeze blood from each one.”

Carefully omitted from his official profile is the fact that under Scott’s leadership, Columbia/HCA plead guilty to a massive array of fraud charges – which resulted in a fraud settlement of $1.7 billion dollars, the largest in U.S history. Columbia/HCA systematically defrauded taxpayers, charging Medicare $15,000 for Tiffany pitchers and other luxury goods, “exaggerating the seriousness of the illnesses they were treating,” and engineering a program where doctors were granted partnerships in hospitals as a kickback for referring patients. In 1997, Scott resigned in disgrace.

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Conservatives For Patients Rights Full-Page Ad: Obama, Show Us The Details Of Your Plan

Today, President Obama kicks off his effort to reform the health care system with a White House Health Summit. The administration is billing the event as an effort to bring the different stakeholders — the insurance industry, drug makers, business groups and consumer advocates — all into one room to agree on common principles of reform.

The Obama administration has vowed to inject transparency into the reform process and has indicated (in its budget and elsewhere) that it is open to considering Republican proposals. In fact, all of the major stakeholders have expressed enthusiasm for the Summit:

- Bill Gradison, ran old Harry & Louise ads: My impression is that there’s been a real openness to reach out to diverse interests, not leaving anyone out — which is how a lot of people felt back in the 1990s. . . . They seem to have learned the lessons of what not to do this time.” [WP, 3/5/2009]

- Karen Ignagni, AHIP: The stakeholder community is no longer organizing to say ‘no.’ [USA TODAY, 3/5/2009]

- Chip Kahn, Federation of American Hospitals: “This is a different day. I think among most of the stakeholders, everyone wants to see this work. There is a tremendous feeling that it’s time.” [AP, 3/5/2009]

The camaraderie may be short lived. If the final solution is seen as threatening to industry profits, some stakeholders will likely fund their own front groups to attack reform. But for now at least, the gang is sticking together. Everyone wants a seat at the table to influence the final legislation.

Unfortunately, conservative ideologues are playing a different game. The Heritage Foundation, Betsy McCaughey, Rush Limbaugh, the Drudge Report, and Fox News (among others) are actively misrepresenting Obama’s proposal.

Today, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, the $20 million smear effort funded by disgraced Columbia/HCA Healthcare CEO Richard Scott, published a full-page ‘Open Letter To President Obama’ in the Washington Post.

The letter accuses Obama of providing “virtually no details on your [health care] plan itself,” recycles the Right’s big-government talking points, and asks the president to share the details of his plan to “allay our fears and end the speculation.”

Of course, if detailing the plan could stop the attacks, then Scott can click the ‘Plans’ tab on his own group’s website and download Obama’s proposal or Sen. Max Baucus’ (D-MT) 98-page vision for reform.

But the details of the plan won’t matter. The Right will continue to box Obama’s proposal (which actually incorporates the values of competition and choice) into a familiar big-government narrative. The goal here is to echo the same message of attack (over and over again) and hope it sticks. Define Obama’s proposal before he can define it himself.

Today, the administration begins its pushback.

Conservative Patient Rights Group Launches Attacks On Obama’s Health Plan

Why should you believe Richard Scott, the former CEO of Columbia/HCA Healthcare who was forced to resign amid fraud charges, when he says that Obama’s health care plan will “ration care” and place patients on “waiting lists”? Well, you shouldn’t, of course, but the $20 million dollar TV and Radio misinformation campaign that Scott’s front group, the so-called Conservatives for Patients Rights is launching, may be hard to ignore. Politico has their first couple of ads:

Their principles are rather ironic. Choice, competition, and accountability are deeply enshrined into Obama’s health care proposal. So much so in fact, that the President builds on the existing employer system, establishes an insurance exchange to enhance competition between insurers (the market is currently dominated by large insurers that don’t really compete with each other) and hold insurers accountable to Americans by ensuring that they can’t cherry pick the healthiest applicants or deny coverage to those who have pre-existing conditions.

The group doesn’t engage with the actual content of Obama’s proposal. Its modus operandi– developed and perfected during Clinton’s failed efforts to reform the health care system — is to launch its attacks against a straw man. In fact, it appears that the group’s public relations guru Brian Burgess, is from the same PR firm that managed the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth; launching concocted right wing fairy tales onto the airwaves is something of a cottage industry for these guys.

The other big irony, of course, is that by misrepresenting Obama’s actual proposal, these “conservatives” are protecting the status quo — in which 46 million Americans are uninsured, 25 million Americans are underinsured and many more are now skipping doctors visits and medications to make ends meet in a worsening economy. In delaying health care reform, they’re helping to realize their own doomsday predictions.