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Guinta Praised by Group Working to Privatize Medicare

by: William Tucker

Thu May 03, 2012 at 06:00:00 AM EDT

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.
William Tucker :: Guinta Praised by Group Working to Privatize Medicare
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Guinta Praised by Group Working to Privatize Medicare | 6 comments
Can we expect (4.00 / 1)
a nice glossy mailer with happy smiling elders and Frank Guinta delivering Meals on Wheels (they may be the last ones they see!)? He will again claim he is "saving" Medicare.  What has NH come to?  We need Carol Shea-Porter back!
What Guinta and Bass Don't Want You To Know About The Ryan Budget (0.00 / 0)
I was going to type this all out but the easiest way (for me) is to just post it this way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

This video is Rich Fiesta talking about Medicare and the Ryan budget at the Nashua library a few weeks ago. Lots of information in here that Frank and Charlie don't want you to know about and won't be included in any glossy mailers (that we pay for).

Rich Fiesta is coming to the Cashin Center in Manchester on May 9th at noon if anyone is interested in meeting him.

Guinta Ganda (0.00 / 0)

What a waste of space "my" congressman is.
Privatization is championed by two parties (bi-partisan par excellence)-- (0.00 / 0)
private enterprise yearning to be suckled at the public teat, whose revenue stream is guaranteed by the power to tax, and public servants, who'd just as soon relieve themselves of all obligations and duties.  Just managing the funds to pay for the public welfare is too much of a burden. Chanting "fraud, waste and abuse" is supposed to explain why they can't account for anything.

It's not surprising Frankie doesn't want to talk about his friends in the health care industry.  How to explain $60 to $80 billion in fraud a year?
That's human husbandry on a grand scale.
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_n...

Are we supposed to believe that if our agents of government didn't have access to the records, all that fraud wouldn't exist? I suppose, if you believe that the weak and halt invite being eaten, then blaming the victim makes sense.  But, you know, to believe that, you also have to posit that humans have less sense than other predators, who do not eat their own kind.
Not the kind of exceptionalism I'd be inclined to promote.

Grammar cop wants a word with you. (4.00 / 1)
The Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC) is comprised of the CEOs of the country's biggest insurers....

No, it is not. That sentence means nothing at all.

What you mean to say is:

The Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC) is composed of the CEOs of the country's biggest insurers....

or perhaps:

The Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC) comprises the CEOs of the country's biggest insurers....

"Comprises" means roughly "embraces" or "includes within its compass." It is not a synonym for "compose"; in fact, it is pretty much its inverse. The whole comprises the parts; the parts compose the whole.

Are there some who state that the blatantly incorrect usage is really okay because more and more people are doing it? Yes. They are the intellectual heirs of the people who started the tradition of saying, "I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less." They profess that there is nothing wrong with saying things that are blatantly false as long as it feels right to them, and think insisting on prissy little things like "truth" and "reason" is elitist and un-American. They are, in short, Tea Partiers, slouching toward a grammatical Gomorrah.

That is all.

Guilty as charged (0.00 / 0)
Will you let me off with a warning?

"Politics ain't beanbag" - Finley Peter Dunne
[ Parent ]
Guinta Praised by Group Working to Privatize Medicare | 6 comments

May 19th@ New England College!

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