"The insurance lobby will spend brazillions of dollars fighting the passage of this bill"

[branders seine]

I find it odd that I've heard that repeatedly from pro-medical-insurance-bill spokespeople over the last week.

The last couple of days, due to a flu bug, I've watched about 1000X as much TV as I usually do. I haven't seen a single advertisement on the medical insurance bill.

WTF? :shrug:

I see all the usual talking head suspects blowing as much smoke as possible, but no concerted media campaign outside of filling up pundit slots on cable news.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Why should they oppose a bill

that they wrote and that stands to profit them so handsomely?

[Oregone]

2. A lot of the money they spent is on lobbyists. Its to influence the bill.

[ellenfl]

3. i have seen one of their ads on msnbc several times.

if they are pulling out all the stops to strike down reform, as they seem to be, ask yourself why. because they like the bill?

ellen fl

[branders seine]

5. they clearly pulled out all the stops last Summer during the town-hall extravaganza,

now? this is not "pulling out all the stops" for an industry with a trillion bucks in cash. Not even close.

[ellenfl]

9. well, rove was in full panic mode this a.m. must be something

there he doesn't like. methinks they all protest too much.

ellen fl

[branders seine]

10. the sputum-spewing spitbags on the media are blustering and blubbering

frantically, no doubt, but the industry did not have a major ad campaign, the teabaggers were not as organized by thelobbyists as they were last summer. All-in-all, either the industry surrendered or they knew they'd already won on the major policy issues.

No single payer = no reform. This deal was done and over with in February of 2009.

[Berry Cool]

4. Watch the freaking March Madness basketball games.

They have ads all over the things. I mean, I'm not watching Martian TV here. Just CBS, and I am seeing plenty of anti-bill ads. Trust me, there is a concerted media campaign. I'm surprised you've missed it thus far.

[branders seine]

6. Science, History, movies, MSNBC, ESPN, a couple of quarters of NCAA,

CSI reruns (Spike?), a few episodes of Family Guy...

I honestly do not recall seeing a single commercial opposing the medical insurance bill. I did see a couple of ads saying to call your congressperson and encourage them to support a public option.

[thotzRthingz]

7. actually it should be: "insurance lobby spending millions of dollars to GET IT their way" ...and it

looks like that was money well spent... they're getting a TON of corporate welfare out of the "supposed HCR bill".

I've heard that this BILL will cost us around a TRILLION (give or take a few BILLION)... I also recently read an article about the White House making a back-room deal, where health insurers are guaranteed that this won't COST them more than $150-billion, or so, over a ten year period. Think about that... we're going to spend a TRILLION and they are only on the hook for about 1/10th of that? Obviously, there's much more money involved... but something is definitely wrong with this picture.

If the GOV'T is going to be "on the hook" for the majority of the costs anyway... why the hell isn't there at least a PUBLIC OPTION (better still, SINGLE PAYER)?

[branders seine]

8. yup. They won on policy before Obama was ever sworn in.

he agreed to kill single payer, which is the only real reform that would work, even before taking office officially.