This Time, We’re Playing To Win
07/14/08 | Comment (3)
Today, I join Health Care for America NOW as Deputy Director of Online Campaigns. I will work to make sure we pass quality, affordable health care for all in 2009.
Last time we tried to pass such a plan, we failed. The timeline of the 1993-1994 health care fight are instructive, and worth reading in their entirety, but these two points I feel get to the heart of the mistakes that were made, via PBS:
November 1, 1993 - Hillary Clinton launches a scathing attack against the insurance industry to counter the highly damaging "Harry and Louise" ads. She accuses the industry of greed and deliberately lying about the reform plan in order to protect its profits. She specifically denounces the ads' claim that the Clinton plan "limits choice." Rarely, if ever, has a First Lady publicly attacked any American industry or industry group -- and certainly never in such strong language and in such a furious manner. Her assault makes front-page newspaper stories, network TV news shows, and calls more attention to HIAA's role and message.
The success of HIAA ads give an immense boost to the organization's fund-raising. In the space of a few weeks, the budget for the campaign expands fivefold from $4 million to $20 million. In the end, HIAA raises and spends about $30 million more than its normal annual operating budget of $20 million -- a grand total of almost $50 million to the lobbying effort. The money HIAA accumulates for the fight pays not only for the Harry and Louise ads but also for a grassroots campaign that dwarfs anything the interest group has ever done. The effort produces more than four hundred fifty thousand contacts with Congress -- phone calls, visits, or letters -almost a thousand to every member of the House and Senate.
...
June 1994 - HIAA brings back its "Harry and Louise" campaign for another month's run, this time targeting provisions in the Clinton plan that will impose backup controls on health care spending and require standard premiums for all those insured. At the same time, HIAA -- in a blatantly cynical move -- runs a print ad that appears only in Washington and is obviously intended to be conciliatory to the playmakers of the capital. The ad emphasizes HIAA's support for universal health care coverage and insurance reform. Pro-reform groups fight back but are badly out spent. The DNC, for example, announces a one-week, $150,000 ad campaign, ostensibly designed to produce phone calls to Congress demanding "the real thing" in reform. But the DNC buys time only on Washington, D.C., stations -- not in the grassroots, where it counts.
Last time we fought for health care, we were out-gunned by the insurance industry. They spent $50 million - that's almost $0.25 for every man, woman, and child living in America at the time - to protect their bottom lines. And indeed, they have been hugely successful. Since Bill Clinton's health care plan was defeated in 1994, the insurance industry has reaped tremendous and increasing profits, with profit margins and revenues increasing markedly in recent years. Insurance company CEOs earn multi-million dollar salaries. Health insurance company administrative costs are more expensive than anywhere else in the world. Americans pay over $50 billion per year to the health insurance industry to pay for their advertising, or as Ezra Klein puts it, "...in other words, we're paying more than $50 billion dollars so insurers can convince us we need care and then figure out how to deny those of us who'll actually use it. That's some added value."
The insurance industry has a huge incentive to protect these lucrative profits, even at the expense of the American people. In the years since Clinton's health care plan fizzled, health care costs have doubled and millions are either uninsured or underinsured. Yet, insurance companies keep raking in money hand over fist, and once again they are prepared to spend millions to protect their currupt and innefficient business model.
This time, we won't be stopped.
Health Care for America Now is prepared to battle the insurance industry. We will spend $40 million to promote affordable, quality health care for all that includes a public plan, and we will make sure this time, when the insurance industry tries to persuade America that health care for all is a bad idea, we will be there to counteract their spin.
More importantly, we've learned from past organizational mistakes, too. We will have a nation-wide grassroots presence, organizing people on the ground to pressure their elected officials to stand up for health care as a fundamental right. This will not be a Washington-centric campaign. When the insurance industry tries to target voters all over the country, we will be there, on the ground, fighting back.
The fact that Health Care for America Now has the money and the grassroots organizing capability to really tangle with the insurance industry is what makes me so excited about my new position. We're asking America, "Which side are you on?" When they tell us that they are on the side of quality, affordable health care for all - as hundreds (now thousands) already have - we'll be there to make sure their voices are heard.
This time, we're going to win.
--Jason Rosenbaum, Deputy Director of Online Campaigns, Health Care for America Now
