Corporate Shills for "Change'

[James]

MONEY from pharmaceutical firms and health-care companies is evil and corrupting -- except when key members of Team Obama are pocketing it.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs derides grassroots opponents of socialized health care as industry-funded lackeys with questionable motives and conflicts of interest. But what about the corporate shills at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.?

Two weeks ago, the White House embraced $150 million in drug-industry ads supporting ObamaCare. This week, Bloomberg News reported that White House senior adviser and chief campaign strategist David Axelrod's former public-relations firm, AKPD Message and Media, has raked in some $24 million in ad contracts supporting ObamaCare -- along with another PR firm, GMMB, run by other Obama strategists.

The ads are funded by Big Pharma, the AARP, AMA and the Service Employees International Union. In trademark Axelrod style, the special-interest coalition adopted faux-grassroots names -- first under the banner of "Healthy Economy Now" and more recently as "Americans for Stable Quality Care."

Because, well, "Corporate Shills for Hope and Change" doesn't have quite the same ring of authenticity.

Axelrod was president and sole shareholder of AKPD from 1985 until last December, when he resigned to take his White House position. His son, Michael, works there. So does former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

Axelrod is prominently featured on AKPD's Web site. AKPD still consults with Axelrod on "strategy and research" for the Democratic National Committee. The firm owes him $2 million.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08212009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/corporate_shills_for_change_185617.htm

[Hedgehog]

James, are you for or against the health care industry?

Now you're critisizing Obama for bending over for the private sector.


In the past - you've critisized him for being "Marxist" and wanting to socialize the health care.


Which is it?

[Kazan]

The problem is our officials are for sale to the highest bidder, no matter how much they claim they are not.

[James]

James, are you for or against the health care industry?

Now you're critisizing Obama for bending over for the private sector.


In the past - you've critisized him for being "Marxist" and wanting to socialize the health care.


Which is it?

Obama Promised transparency, He says one things and does another.

I am against our elected officials having closed door meetings and back room Deals.  When either party does it.

I think Americans should have better access to cheaper priced prescriptions from other Countries,  Obama does not.

[Soul Crusher]

Obama Promised transparency, He says one things and does another.

I am against our elected officials having closed door meetings and back room Deals.  When either party does it.

I think Americans should have better access to cheaper priced prescriptions from other Countries,  Obama does not.

Of course not James - Axelrod is getting millions from Big Pharma sdo that this does not happen. 

[James]

Of course not James - Axelrod is getting millions from Big Pharma sdo that this does not happen.

true

[Soul Crusher]

Citing health overhaul, AARP hikes employee costs
WWW.YAHOO.COM
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, Associated Press
Thu Nov 4, 4:34 pm ET

________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ____________

 
WASHINGTON – AARP's endorsement helped secure passage of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Now the seniors' lobby is telling its employees their insurance costs will rise partly as a result of the law.

In an e-mail to employees, AARP says health care premiums will increase by 8 percent to 13 percent next year because of rapidly rising medical costs.

And AARP adds that it's changing copayments and deductibles to avoid a 40 percent tax on high-cost health plans that takes effect in 2018 under the law. Aerospace giant Boeing also has cited the tax in asking its workers to pay more. Shifting costs to employees lowers the value of a health care plan and acts like an escape hatch from the tax.

"Most plan co-pays and deductibles have been modified," Jennifer Hodges, AARP's director of compensation and benefits, wrote employees in an Oct. 25 e-mail. "Plan value changes were necessary not only from a cost management standpoint but also to ensure that AARP's plans fall below the threshold for high-cost group plans under health care reform."

AARP officials said medical inflation is the main reason employee costs will be going up. The health care law is "a small part," said David Certner, legislative affairs director.

Although the tax on so-called "Cadillac" health care plans doesn't take effect for years, employers are already beginning to assess their potential exposure because it is hefty: at 40 percent of the value above $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for a family plan. The tax is intended as a savings measure, to prod employers and workers into more cost-efficient plans.

Certner said AARP's plans are currently under the threshold for the tax. "We intend to stay below those thresholds," he said. "It's not in anybody's interest to move above those thresholds, not the employees' nor the employer's."

AARP officials say the organization's public policy recommendations are made independently of other considerations, including its range of business ventures, from travel, to insurance, to publishing.

The 40 million-strong AARP represents people 50 and older, including retirees on Medicare and Social Security. Its endorsement of health care overhaul came at a critical time last year, days before a close vote on the House floor.

"The impact on AARP employees is not a factor at all in our policy making, which is directed at the impact on our membership and on all older Americans," said Certner.

About 4,500 people are covered by AARP's plans, including employees, dependents and retirees.

"We supported the (health care) package because it contained incredibly important protections for our younger members, who often have problems getting access to care," said spokesman Jim Dau. "And because it helps our older members in Medicare with important new benefits."

Starting in 2014, the overhaul law prohibits insurance companies from turning down people with medical problems, and limits what they can charge older customers. It gradually closes the coverage gap in the Medicare prescription benefit, and improves coverage for preventive care.

The Obama administration says changes required by the law so far have only had a minimal, single-digit impact on premiums. Many benefits experts agree with that assessment but point out that the increases come on top of untamed health care inflation.

AARP warned its employees that more cost-shifting could be in store. "AARP intends to make similar changes, as necessary, in the future to avoid the (health plan) tax," said Hodges' e-mail.

Current forecasts are that the overhaul will only have a small impact on job-based coverage, slightly reducing the number of people who would otherwise be covered by employer plans. Those workers would have access to taxpayer-subsidized coverage through new insurance markets.


________________________ ________________________ _______

FUCKING MORONS. 

[Soul Crusher]

Strassel: Axelrod's ObamaCare Dollars

Emails suggest the White House pushed business to the presidential adviser's former firm to sell the health-care law.

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL


Rewind to 2009. The fight over ObamaCare is raging, and a few news outlets report that something looks ethically rotten in the White House. An outside group funded by industry is paying the former firm of senior presidential adviser David Axelrod to run ads in favor of the bill. That firm, AKPD Message and Media, still owes Mr. Axelrod money and employs his son.

The story quickly died, but emails recently released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee ought to resurrect it. The emails suggest the White House was intimately involved both in creating this lobby and hiring Mr. Axelrod's firm—which is as big an ethical no-no as it gets.
 
Mr. Axelrod—who left the White House last year—started AKPD in 1985. The firm earned millions helping run Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. Mr. Axelrod moved to the White House in 2009 and agreed to have AKPD buy him out for $2 million. But AKPD chose to pay Mr. Axelrod in annual installments—even as he worked in the West Wing. This agreement somehow passed muster with the Office of Government Ethics, though the situation at the very least should have walled off AKPD from working on White-House priorities.

It didn't. The White House and industry were working hand-in-glove to pass ObamaCare in 2009, and among the vehicles supplying ad support was an outfit named Healthy Economy Now (HEN). News stories at the time described this as a "coalition" that included the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the American Medical Association, and labor groups—suggesting these entities had started and controlled it.

House emails show HEN was in fact born at an April 15, 2009 meeting arranged by then-White House aide Jim Messina and a chief of staff for Democratic Sen. Max Baucus. The two politicos met at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and invited representatives of business and labor.
 
A Service Employees International Union attendee sent an email to colleagues noting she'd been invited by the Baucus staffer, explaining: "Also present was Jim Messina. . . . They basically want to see adds linking HC reform to the economy. . . . there were not a lot of details, but we were told that we wd be getting a phone call. well that call came today."

The call was from Nick Baldick, a Democratic consultant who had worked on the Obama campaign and for the DSCC. Mr. Baldick started HEN. The only job of PhRMA and others was to fund it.

Meanwhile, Mr. Axelrod's old firm was hired to run the ads promoting ObamaCare. At the time, a HEN spokesman said HEN had done the hiring. But the emails suggest otherwise. In email after email, the contributors to HEN refer to four men as the "White House" team running health care. They included John Del Cecato and Larry Grisolano (partners at AKPD), as well as Andy Grossman (who once ran the DSCC) and Erik Smith, who had been a paid adviser to the Obama presidential campaign.

 In one email, PhRMA consultant Steve McMahon calls these four the "WH-designated folks." He explains to colleagues that Messrs. Grossman, Grisolano and Del Cecato "are very close to Axelrod," and that "they have been put in charge of the campaign to pass health reform." Ron Pollack, whose Families USA was part of the HEN coalition, explained to colleagues that "the team that is working with the White House on health-care reform. . . . [Grossman, Smith, Del Cecato, Grisolano] . . . would like to get together with us." This would provide "guidance from the White House about their messaging."

According to White House visitor logs, Mr. Smith had 28 appointments scheduled between May and August—17 made through Mr. Messina or his assistant. Mr. Grossman appears in the logs at least 19 times. Messrs. Del Cecato and Grisolano of AKPD also visited in the spring and summer, at least twice with Mr. Axelrod, who was deep in the health-care fight.

A 2009 PhRMA memo also makes clear that AKPD had been chosen before PhRMA joined HEN. It's also clear that some contributors didn't like the conflict of interest. When, in July 2009, a media outlet prepared to report AKPD's hiring, a PhRMA participant said: "This is a big problem." Mr. Baldick advises: "just say, AKPD is not working for PhRMA." AKPD and another firm, GMMB, would handle $12 million in ad business from HEN and work for a successor 501(c)4.
 
A basic rule of White House ethics is to avoid even the appearance of self-dealing or nepotism. If Mr. Axelrod or his West Wing chums pushed political business toward Mr. Axelrod's former firm, they contributed to his son's salary as well as to the ability of the firm to pay Mr. Axelrod what it still owed him. Could you imagine the press frenzy if Karl Rove had dome the same after he joined the White House?

Messrs. Axelrod and Messina are now in Chicago running Mr. Obama's campaign. Mr. Axelrod, the White House and a partner for AKPD didn't respond to requests for comment on their role in HEN, the tapping of Mr. Baldick, and the redolent hiring of AKPD. Until the White House explains all this, voters can fairly conclude that the President's political team took their Chicago brand of ethics into the White House.

Write to kim@wsj.com
 
A version of this article appeared June 22, 2012, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Axelrod's ObamaCare Dollars.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304765304577480871706139792.html?mod=hp_opinion

[Soul Crusher]

BUMP



BUMP



BUMP