The Sicko files

Wendell Potter, who was once the head of Public Relations at health insurance giant CIGNA, recently testified before Congress on the nefarious practices of the insurance industry. Last Friday he did an extended interview with Bill Moyers. In the video excerpt below, Moyers and Potter discuss the insurance industry’s comprehensive strategy to discredit Michael Moore’s Sicko.
The insurance industry was extremely nervous about the release of Moore’s film. Their trade association prepared a document full of talking points and tactics for lobbyists and insurance industry staffers. The contents were highly confidential, but not any more. Moyers not only obtained a copy, but has posted the complete document online (PDF). It’s as fascinating as one of those secret tobacco industry memos.

Among the recommended tactics:

• Take the issues Sicko raises “off the table”
• Define the health insurance industry as part of the solution
• Highlight threats and weaknesses of government-run systems
• Position Sicko as a threat to the Democrats’ larger agenda (i.e., emphasize that the movie threatens to “drive centrist democrats to the political left and embrace politically untenable policies”)
• Prepare for the worst

How do lobbyists gain access and twist arms?

Insurance industry lobbyists were instructed to threaten any member of Congress who showed the least bit of sympathy for the message of Sicko.

Potter: Part of the effort to discredit the film was to use lobbyists and their [the insurance industry’s] own staff to go onto Capitol Hill and say, “Look, you don’t want to believe this movie. You don’t want to talk about it. You don’t want to endorse it. And if you do, we can make things tough for you.
Moyers: How?
Potter: By running ads, commercials, in your home district when you’re running for re-election. Not contributing to your campaigns again, or contributing to your competitor.

Later in the interview, Moyers returns to the subject of lobbying:

Moyers: I just read the other day … that Max Baucus’s [chairman of the Senate Finance Committee] staff met with a group of lobbyists. Two of them had been Baucus’s former chiefs of staff.
Potter: Right.
Moyers: I mean, they left the government. They go to work for the industry. Now they’re back with an insider status. They get an access, right?
Potter: Oh, they do, they do. And these lobbyists’ ability to raise money for these folks also is very important as well. …
[M]y [insurance company] executives wanted to meet with … Hillary Clinton, when she was still in the Senate and still a candidate for president. Well, that’s hard to do. That’s hard to pull off, but she did. That just shows you that you can, through the relationships that are formed and that the insurance industry pays for, by hiring these lobbyists, you can get your foot in the door. You can get your messages across to these people, in ways that the average American couldn’t possibly.
Moyers: So it’s money that can buy access to have their arguments heard, right?
Potter: That’s right.
Moyers: When ordinary citizens cannot be heard.
Potter: Absolutely right. It’s the way the American system has evolved, the political system. But it does offend me, that the vested special interests, who are so profitable and so powerful, are able to influence public policy in the way that they have, and the way that they’ve done over the years. And the insurance industry has been one of the most successful, in beating back any kind of legislation that would hinder or affect the profitability of the companies.

Michael Moore: Hollywood entertainer

Part of the insurance industry’s strategy was to consistently discredit Michael Moore by linking his name to Hollywood. The idea was to portray the film as a Hollywood entertainment fantasy, not a documentary. I suppose Moore should feel flattered that he was considered such a powerful threat.
Moyers and Potter conclude that this “debunk Moore” strategy was successful for the insurance industry.

Moyers: So you would actually hear politicians mouth the talking points that had been circulated by the industry to discredit Michael Moore.
Potter: Absolutely.
Moyers: … So your plan worked. The film was blunted. Was it true? Did you think the film contained a great truth?
Potter: Absolutely.
Moyers: What was it?
Potter: That we shouldn’t fear government involvement in our health care system. That there is an appropriate role for government and it’s been proven in the countries that were in that movie.

An interview excerpt

The first two minutes of the video are scenes from Sicko, in case you want to skip ahead.

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