Tomorrow, health insurance giant Aetna is sponsoring a “town hall conversation on the national health system reform debate” at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. CNN anchor Tony Harris will moderate the panel, which features lobbyists from the health insurance industry and opponents of reform:
– Panelist Mohit Ghose works for Aetna as the VP of Public Affairs, the lobbying division of the company. Ghose has served for years as a spokesman and lobbyist for the health insurance trade group AHIP. Ghose helped push focus-group tested attacks against Michael Moore and his movie SiCKO as part of the industry’s campaign to marginalize the impact of the film.
– Panelist Dr. Sheila Robinson is a representative from the Georgia Medical Association, an organization led by Todd Williamson. Williamson has gone on the record attacking health reform, and has been heavily involved in an anti-reform front group known as “Coalition to Protect Patients’ Rights” (CPPR). CPPR is managed by the lobbying firm DCI Group, which has set up “Smokers’ Rights” groups in the past for the tobacco industry.
The event, which is being funded by an $80,000 grant from Aetna, is co-hosted by the 100 Black Men of Atlanta, a group that also counts Aetna as a corporate sponsor.
This town hall is the type of “listening tour” event the insurance industry has encouraged to make the public believe that insurers support reform. Aetna is one of the companies on the “Strategic Communications Committee” for AHIP to help devise communication strategies to derail health reform. The committee coordinates positive messages from the insurance industry, while secretly funding and planning stealth attacks against reform. (Check out ThinkProgress’ report on the insurance industry’s “duplicitous” campaign to kill meaningful reform.)
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/23/aetna-cnn-healthreform/
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