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Congressman Frank Guinta has earned accolades from a front group working to privatize Medicare.
The Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC) is comprised of the CEOs of the country's biggest insurers, drug companies, hospital chains and medical device manufacturers. Tuesday, at an award ceremony in Washington, the group honored Guinta as a "Champion of Healthcare Innovation."
The HLC is notorious for the fear-mongering campaign it ran against the Clinton health care reform proposal in 1993. Wendell Potter, former head of public relations for CIGNA, writes that the HLC is now leading the charge to move forward with the Ryan plan and privatize Medicare -- "albeit with a few tweaks and a new sales pitch to make it seem more consumer-friendly."
While Ryan would move all Medicare beneficiaries into a privatized system in one fell swoop, the HLC's plan would do it more gradually. It would, in the words of the press release, "create a new 'Medicare Exchange' in which private plans would compete on the basis of cost, quality and value."
But buyer beware. Rest assured that the HLC is far more interested in the special interests of its member companies and organizations than in what is in your best interests. And the very existence of the HLC shows why it has been so difficult to get Congress to enact comprehensive health care reform. The executives who fund the HLC want first and foremost to preserve their profits and protect their incomes.
Guinta has hailed the Ryan plan, which would replace Medicare with vouchers that beneficiaries would use to buy coverage from private insurance, as "a bipartisan, practical approach to safeguarding Medicare for future generations." It's no surprise that the HLC and Guinta are allies — nor that he has received over $180,000 in campaign contributions from the insurance industry, health professionals and hospitals.