National
Secretive group flexes its muscle on health care in Maine
These below-the-radar activities were the handiwork of a law firm in Charlotte, N.C., that operates a secretive group called Americans for Quality and Affordable Healthcare. The organization's sponsors remain a mystery - its Web site offers no clues, and the law firm won't say.
In a year that has seen hundreds of millions of dollars spent on health care lobbying and TV ads, the advocacy group's impact is hard to gauge since the full scope of its operations is unclear. But its activities illustrate how some are furtively trying to shape public and congressional opinion through front groups - seemingly independent organizations that pursue their founders' goals while masking their identity.
One clue to the mystery group may lie in its goals: to oppose any government-run insurance option, the approach favored by President Barack Obama and most Democrats, and to support requiring all Americans to buy insurance.
Those aims match two of the health insurance industry's top priorities. Several industry officials disavowed any knowledge of the group and said they're not behind it, including the trade group America's Health Insurance Plans, Blue Cross-Blue Shield of North Carolina, and other large national and North Carolina insurers.
Presented evidence that the activities in Maine, Nevada and Louisiana involved employees of Moore & Van Allen, one of North Carolina's larger law firms, the firm's spokesman Matthew French acknowledged the connection and said the firm runs the health care group for clients. He declined to name them, but he referred to "member companies of AQAH," the group's acronym.
"They want to stay in the background and off the front page," said French. "They want the message to be the important thing."
Moore & Van Allen has more than 300 attorneys and numbers financial, manufacturing, technology and health companies among its clients, although it won't name them. It says they include "some of America's foremost hospitals, multi-institutional health care systems, physician groups, specialty providers, lenders and insurers."
French would not discuss the health group's financing or provide much detail about its activities, saying it gives materials to like-minded organizations to distribute to their members.
The three states where the group's activities have been noticed are focal points of the health care fight. Nevada is home to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat who is putting together the Senate's health overhaul bill. Louisiana and Maine are represented by two senators viewed as swing votes: Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.
French acknowledged the group is hoping its activities will build pressure on lawmakers.
"Obviously we want to educate to an end purpose. Otherwise we're just kind of preaching to trees," he said.
The group's Web site says publicly run insurance would "drive all the major players out of the healthcare market," and it includes a page that lets people easily e-mail members of Congress to express those views.
The site does not reveal its sponsorship or provide an address or phone number, unusual for an Internet site trying to arouse public action. Even the owner of the site's Internet domain name is hidden, officially registered to Domains By Proxy Inc., a Scottsdale, Ariz., company that shields the real owner's identity.
French said the three employees of the law firm whose activities for the group were discovered work for the firm's government affairs division, which the practice's Web site says helps clients "shape public opinion, defeat adverse legislation." None of the three is listed as an attorney.
The operatives' activities have included:
-Several weeks ago, Lindsay Schroeder, a legislative aide at the law firm, approached the Maine Hospital Association in Augusta to see if it would participate in panel discussions about the health care overhaul, said association spokeswoman Mary Mayhew. "I assume she was trying to get some media coverage. I'm sure a part of it was to generate grass-roots activity," Mayhew said. Officials of at least three other Maine trade groups described similar visits around the same time, but they could not recall the woman's name or affiliation. All said they declined involvement.
-A deputy director of the firm's government affairs team, Andrew Smith, helped a representative of the conservative Nevada Policy Research Council appear on a Las Vegas talk radio show to discuss health care, said council spokesman Andy Matthews.
-Reid McMillan, another deputy director of government affairs, e-mailed an opinion column the health care group distributes to Ellen Carmichael, a conservative activist in Baton Rouge, La., who got it posted on a conservative blog called Healthcare Horserace.
___
On the Net:
Americans for Quality and Affordable Healthcare: www.aqah.org
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Displaying comments, from newest to oldest
Whenever you have a group
Whenever you have a group calling itself "Americans for...." anything, you can pretty much bet that their name is a deliberate shield for ignorant, narrow-minded, self-serving behavior.
Why are some people shaking in their shoes at the idea of national health care? Are we so terrified of change and progress that we're willing to cower down and say, "oh, no thanks, kind sirs, I'm perfectly happy having no recourse to decent health care if my employer is a cheap SOB or if I lose my job, or otherwise can't afford the outrageous premiums. I'm happy just to die and decrease the surplus population". Big Business would be just as happy for you to die of a treatable disease rather than help work out a national health care plan.
Let's be honest. The rich want to get richer, and they're not happy about any plan that might prevent them from raking in ever-bigger profits. The problems and plight of individuals don't concern them in the least. Insurance companies and medical groups are not charitable organizations. Anyone who thinks they're helping America by standing on the side of Big Business greed and avarice is sorely mistaken.
verified Skippy - I am a college
Skippy -
I am a college graduate. I work 35 hours a week as an administrative assistant in a non-profit corporation that works to create jobs for other people.
The jobs created through our work often have good pay and great health benefits.
My job does not. My boss gets health insurance from her husband. I haven't been to a doctor in over five years even though I have had severe concussions, intestinal problems, mental health issues, and most recently a bout of the flu that left me so dehydrated that I was completely drained, vomiting, and unable to eat for several days.
I know I could have gone to the hospital at any one of those times, but I already have over 35k in student loan debt that I am currently repaying, and I cannot afford to throw thousands of more dollars onto my pile. I would, and could have on a few occasions, die of entirely treatable conditions because I cannot afford it out of pocket.
I know, I am such a burden on society, just starting my adult life, working to create jobs for other people, actually repaying the debts I have, and one day I will die of dehydration because I couldn't afford to spend three thousand dollars on a day in the hospital.
Where has respect and dignity for human life gone?
verified Skippy, look at it this way.
Skippy, look at it this way. If they are not credible and you agree with their positions then you are not credible and your postions are likely wrong too. Don't you want known factual support for your positons.
Jon Albrecht Dixfield
verified Skippy, 44870 Americans die
Skippy, 44870 Americans die each year because they do not have health insurance. The US is rated 15th to 37th among industrialized countries in the quality of its health care.
So much for "taking care" of people without insurance.
The American people have a right to know who is pitching what propaganda. It speaks directly to the credibility of the source. The only reason to operate in secret is because knowing who they are will hurt their message. Given that I would ignore these folks.
Jon Albrecht Dixfield
verified These people are exercising
These people are exercising their rights as American citizens in expressing their views. There are many people opposed to a government insurance as I am. The public option should not even be on the table. If people expect to be taken care of when they need a doctor or hospitalization they should be obligated to show they have insurance or the financial resources to apply for that care. Yes, there has to be provisions made for those who cannot do this, but these are a limited number of people and are currently t aken care of in our existing system. There are many private insurance companies willing to assume the risk of paying for our care and it is up to government to allow these companies to offer that service and not compete with it. The pubilc option will only be another bloated government agency run by political favorites who lack the business skills needed to operate such an enterprise and will have to be funded and subsidised by tax dollars. Before people think that the public option is a cure all they should ask why some Canadian provinces have been sued successfully by their citizens for the right to have and buy private insurance rather than depend on the government plan. Also, look at the taxes, 50% income, and sales taxes, 15% they have to pay for services in Canada provided by their government. NOTHING is FREE.
Is this a new article or an
Is this a new article or an editorial? It walks, talks, and smells like an editorial written
an unabashed liberal, Democrat supporter.
“If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.” Winston Churchill
Lawyer/client privilege is a
Lawyer/client privilege is a funny thing and it swings both ways. Many were upset when it appeared to me, that Obama hid his early years and supporters with this tool.
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verified on "P. Nachman: Confidence probably misplaced"
The cost of Medicare fraud
The cost of Medicare fraud today is estimated to be $60Billion for which the Federal Government does little about. That amount is nothing to ignore, especially when $0.38 of every federal dollar spent is borrowed.
While we agree there will be fraud in oBamaCare, we both cannot make assertions to its magnitude since we cannot attempt to measure it at this point.
Perhaps you don’t care about the waste, cost, or fraud with Medicare or evolving oBamaCare, some of us do, particularly if we are paying for it.
Let me reiterate – the Government is has an abysmal track record when it comes to financial responsibility and efficiency, I expect no improvements.
Perhaps that is okay for people receiving the benefit but pays not.
verified on "P. Nachman: Confidence probably misplaced"
Mr. Nachman has a perfect
Mr. Nachman has a perfect right to write whatever he wants, however most papers, including this one, generally lets its readers know any agenda a letter writer may have. Otherwise they should publish them as an opinion piece instead of a LTE. I found it extremely amusing that after revealing only a portion of Mr. Nachman's background, leblanc accuses me of being a xenophobe. The irony of it all.
verified on "Turning back the clock on social care"
you're right, I consider a
you're right, I consider a tax cut of $140 million a year massive, surprisingly, to you that appears to be a pittance.
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