skippy the bush kangaroo: insurance company, astro-turf thyself

Thursday, August 13, 2009

insurance company, astro-turf thyself

you know that leftist screed about how all this town hall rage is manufactured? maybe it's not so much a "screed," as "the actual truth." the hill:

wendell potter, a former cigna vice president, detailed what he said were past covert efforts by the industry. though he said he does not have specifics for what is occurring now, because he's been out of the business for a year, it follows the same pattern.

"the industry is up to the same dirty tricks this year," potter said at a capitol news conference after meeting with house rules committee chairwoman louise slaughter (d-n.y.), an avid supporter of the democrats' plans for a healthcare overhaul.

"when you hear someone complaining about traveling down a 'slippery slope to socialism,' some insurance flack, like i used to be, wrote that," potter added.

potter said during his 20 years in the insurance business, the industry would funnel money to large public firms who would create front groups and find friendly voices in conservative media.

in particular, he cited front groups created to fight "patients' bill of rights" legislation in the 1990s, as well as a campaign to discredit the michael moore film "sicko," which harshly criticized the industry.

of course, that's not to say that there aren't real grass-roots showing up @ these town hall meetings who are genuinely mad. it's just that when we say "mad," we don't mean angry, we mean rabid and insane:

a man who was holding a sign reading "death to obama" wednesday outside a town hall meeting on health care reform in hagerstown, md., has been turned over to the secret service.

washington county sheriff's capt. peter lazich said the sign also read, "death to michelle and her two stupid kids."

lazich said u.s. secret service agents took the unidentified 51-year-old man into custody wednesday afternoon after deputies detained him near the entrance to hagerstown community college…

barbara golden, special agent in charge of the agency's baltimore field office, said thursday that an investigation is ongoing but declined further comment. a spokesman at the agency's washington headquarters also declined to discuss the investigation.

add that to the guy who showed up w/a gun to one of these events earlier this week, not to mention the man who ripped apart a woman's picture of rosa parks, and you get a pretty scary impression of the kinds of people coming to these ~~beer hall putsches~~ town halls.

posted by skippy at 10:19 PM |

2 Comments:

The neighborhood I live in has a rather high concentration of conservative, white senior citizens. One such couple still has a McCain/Palin sign in their front yard. It's getting harder to read as time goes by, though -- the front lawns of the houses on either side of it are well maintained, but this lawn needs some TLC badly.

I hope the man of that house doesn't wind up on the 6 o'clock news...

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