Taichiliberal
Shaken, not stirred!
Whistleblower is Dems' best ammo in health care fight
Updated Monday, August 3rd 2009, 9:26 AM
Everyone is familiar with the street adage that one should not take a knife to a gunfight. They have probably even heard it way down in Washington, where the truth is hard to hear and even harder to see.
I would suggest that President Obama and his crew need to take that attitude into the health care battle with the Republicans. It is high time for the Dems to realize that you hunt elephants with elephant guns, not fly swatters.
The best ammunition is at least one highly placed whistleblower.
The whistleblower's word can be strong enough to perforate the tough flesh of any argument made in defense of big-money interests presented as national concerns. The whistleblower has the ultimate credentials: he or she was there.
The whistleblower can say exactly what is actually happening, what the strategy is, and also can decode all of the false statements and pull the covers off all of the biggest and most indefensible lies.
Plenty of lies and distortions have been bought and paid for by the health industry, recently to the tune of about $1 million day. Who can deflect the power of that much money? Believe it or not, money is not invulnerable.
In America, there are often those who seem sent here for the purpose of exposing what we need to know. When such people are found and used strategically, big things take the fall.
The best ammunition for the elephant gun I have seen so far is Wendell Potter, who spent 20 years working up in the command towers for the health industry. While an executive employee of two health care behemoths, Cigna and Humana, Potter learned well how to bean-ball the truth whenever it came to the plate.
Potter has already been interviewed by Howard Dean on MSNBC and by Bill Moyers on PBS. He also has testified before Congress. But his has not yet become the household name that it should be. Obama and his crew should change that.
The reason is that Potter could be to the health industry what scientist Victor DeNoble was to the tobacco industry when his time came. In 1994, DeNoble testified that Philip Morris had hired him to do research on the dangerous effects of nicotine, then suppressed what he found out when the results proved cigarettes to be harmful. Uh-oh.
The Democratic Party could write an infomercial like Obama did during prime time before the election and present Potter as part of the stun gun capable of bringing the elephants down.
As a homegrown Southerner from Tennessee, Wendell Potter would be hard to dismiss. Even the people who sometimes blindly support fear-based policy would listen long and hard. Those fear-based policies function against their own interests but are presented as a socialist plot bent on destroying our health care system and doing the public in. But Potter said this to Bill Moyers early last month:
"I am speaking out about how big for-profit insurers have hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street investors, and how the industry is using its massive wealth and influence to determine what is (and is not) included in the health care reform legislation members of Congress are now writing. I was in a unique position to see not only how Wall Street analysts and investors influence decisions insurance company executives make, but also how the industry has carried out behind-the-scenes PR and lobbying campaigns to kill or weaken any health care reform efforts that threatened insurers' profitability."
That's the kind of ammunition that the elephant gun could use most effectively. The earth would tremble as so many elephants fell before that kind of force.
crouch.stanley@gmail.com
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions..._ammo_in_health_care_fight.html#ixzz0NGCjl6BP
Updated Monday, August 3rd 2009, 9:26 AM
Everyone is familiar with the street adage that one should not take a knife to a gunfight. They have probably even heard it way down in Washington, where the truth is hard to hear and even harder to see.
I would suggest that President Obama and his crew need to take that attitude into the health care battle with the Republicans. It is high time for the Dems to realize that you hunt elephants with elephant guns, not fly swatters.
The best ammunition is at least one highly placed whistleblower.
The whistleblower's word can be strong enough to perforate the tough flesh of any argument made in defense of big-money interests presented as national concerns. The whistleblower has the ultimate credentials: he or she was there.
The whistleblower can say exactly what is actually happening, what the strategy is, and also can decode all of the false statements and pull the covers off all of the biggest and most indefensible lies.
Plenty of lies and distortions have been bought and paid for by the health industry, recently to the tune of about $1 million day. Who can deflect the power of that much money? Believe it or not, money is not invulnerable.
In America, there are often those who seem sent here for the purpose of exposing what we need to know. When such people are found and used strategically, big things take the fall.
The best ammunition for the elephant gun I have seen so far is Wendell Potter, who spent 20 years working up in the command towers for the health industry. While an executive employee of two health care behemoths, Cigna and Humana, Potter learned well how to bean-ball the truth whenever it came to the plate.
Potter has already been interviewed by Howard Dean on MSNBC and by Bill Moyers on PBS. He also has testified before Congress. But his has not yet become the household name that it should be. Obama and his crew should change that.
The reason is that Potter could be to the health industry what scientist Victor DeNoble was to the tobacco industry when his time came. In 1994, DeNoble testified that Philip Morris had hired him to do research on the dangerous effects of nicotine, then suppressed what he found out when the results proved cigarettes to be harmful. Uh-oh.
The Democratic Party could write an infomercial like Obama did during prime time before the election and present Potter as part of the stun gun capable of bringing the elephants down.
As a homegrown Southerner from Tennessee, Wendell Potter would be hard to dismiss. Even the people who sometimes blindly support fear-based policy would listen long and hard. Those fear-based policies function against their own interests but are presented as a socialist plot bent on destroying our health care system and doing the public in. But Potter said this to Bill Moyers early last month:
"I am speaking out about how big for-profit insurers have hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street investors, and how the industry is using its massive wealth and influence to determine what is (and is not) included in the health care reform legislation members of Congress are now writing. I was in a unique position to see not only how Wall Street analysts and investors influence decisions insurance company executives make, but also how the industry has carried out behind-the-scenes PR and lobbying campaigns to kill or weaken any health care reform efforts that threatened insurers' profitability."
That's the kind of ammunition that the elephant gun could use most effectively. The earth would tremble as so many elephants fell before that kind of force.
crouch.stanley@gmail.com
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions..._ammo_in_health_care_fight.html#ixzz0NGCjl6BP
