Swift Boating Health Care Reform
As national leaders gather in Washington this week for President Obama’s health care summit, a right-wing front group called “Conservatives for Patients Rights” is launching a giant media offensive in an attempt to torpedo any health care reform efforts.
By Christy Harvey, Mic Check Radio
March 4, 2009
Know Five Things
1. The Campaign
A group called Conservatives for Patients Rights is spending $20 million on a massive radio and television ad campaign to fight new health care reform as outlined by President Obama. The group’s head, the right-wing millionaire Richard Scott, is spending $5 million of his own money on the effort. [Politico]
2. Who Is Richard Scott?
Richard Scott is the former CEO of Columbia/HCA Healthcare. In 1997, Scott was forced to resign from the company amid fraud charges. HCA then admitted “to bilking various government programs and agreed to pay a total of $840 million in fines and penalties.” The fraud settlement was, at the time, the largest in U.S. history. Today, Scott owns an urgent-care company with more than 20 facilities across the U.S.; although he makes money from Medicare and Medicaid, he insists his interest in killing the health-care overhaul is not his personal bottom line. [Forbes] [Politico]
3. The Swift Boat Connection
Conservatives for Patients Rights is working with public relations guru Brian Burgess to craft its media strategy. Burgess works for the same PR company, Creative Response Concepts, that managed PR for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth smear campaign in 2004. [Variety]
4. What Americans Want
Americans overwhelmingly favor new health care reform. A recent CNN poll found 72 percent favor “a program that would increase the federal government’s influence over the country’s health care system in an attempt to lower costs and provide health care coverage to more Americans” while a Fox News poll found 66 percent of Americans agree that it is “the responsibility of the federal government” to “make sure all Americans have health care.” [CNN/Opinion Research Corp Poll] [Fox News/Opinion Dynamics PDF]
5. Claim V. Fact
The Richard Scott group says new health care reform limits choice: “Imagine waking up one day and all your medical decisions are made by a central national board. Bureaucrats decide the treatments you receive, the drugs you take, even the doctors you see.” That isn’t true. In reality, the president’s plan outlines “eight principles of any overhaul, including letting patients stick with their own doctors and health care plans, reducing insurance premiums and guaranteeing that Americans will have a choice of health plans and physicians.” [EzraKlein]
Read Additional Resources
“Conservative Patient Rights Group Launches Attacks On Obama’s Health Plan,” Igor Volsky for The Wonk Room, 03/03/09 [Wonk Room]
- Excerpt: “...it appears that the group’s public relations guru Brian Burgess, is from the same PR firm that managed the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth; launching concocted right-wing fairy tales onto the airwaves is something of a cottage industry for these guys…”
“Health Care Reform Debate Guide,” Center for American Progress/ The Wonk Room. [CAP PDF]
- Excerpt: “As the 111th Congress considers health care reform, conservatives and their industry allies—so-called opponents of health care reform—will likely embark on a misinformation campaign about the consequences and implications of expanding access to affordable health care coverage. The Wonk Room has compiled and debunked the right wing’s most widely circulated myths about reform.”
“Health Reformers Meet Their Enemy,” Ezra Klein for The American Prospect, 03/03/09 [EzraKlein]
- Excerpt: “If I were a Republican, I’d be ready to slit my wrists at the prospect of former Columbia/HCA Healthcare CEO Rick Scott heading the conservative response to Obama’s health reform effort. This is like liberals getting Franklin Raines to run their economic messaging or Bush tasking Donald Rumsfeld with a comprehensive defense of his administration’s legacy.”
“Reformers: Meet Public Enemy Number On,” Jonathan Cohn for The New Republic, 03/03/09. [Cohn]
- Excerpt: “...the pinched access to services in Britain, at least, isn’t a product of universal health care. It’s a product of universal health care on the cheap. The British spend just 7 percent of their national wealth on health care, less than half of what Americans spend. It’s possible to spend more than that—and get more—while still spending less than the United States does. A perfect example is Japan. Relative to the United States, Japan spends about 60 percent as much of its wealth on health care. But the Japanese don’t wait for medical services. And they have more ‘stuff.’ In fact, Japan leads the world in the availability of technology such as CT scanners and MRI machines…”
Talk to An Expert
Interested in talking with an expert on this topic or hosting a speaking event? Contact
speakers@campusprogress.org to get in touch with one of the following or another expert:
- Igor Volsky, Research Assistant for The Progress Report and The Wonk Room at American Progress, focusing on health care issues.
- Christy Harvey, editor of Mic Check Radio and Segment In A Box at American Progress
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