A former vice-president-turned-whistleblower from the healthcare giant Cigna says that the healthcare industry is using “dirty tricks” to form public opinion over the healthcare debate, according to CNN. Skilled with its use of language, Wendell Potter says the industry is ratcheting up its efforts to criticize many of the reform plans, including the government-run plan originally proposed by President Obama.
These dirty tricks include currying favor with members of Congress at the same time as they wage huge campaigns to undermine the efforts at reform, according to an article in Politico.
Many citizens have been riled up over the healthcare debate, taking their voices to town hall meetings with their members of Congress across the country. One Congresswoman says that the extreme dialogue on healthcare is not new; in fact it is an elevated form of the loud town halls of the 1990s when healthcare reform was originally proposed.
But Potter has now stated that the ‘buzzwords’ being used to counter and criticize health care legislation originate from industry spinmeisters, who are doing so, according to the CNN article, “in an effort to manipulate public opinion.”
for all things re Perception Manipulation, I recommend the novel by David Baldacci: The Whole Truth.
Posted by: sophie barnes | September 04, 2009 at 12:35 PM