Dear Mitch Stewart & OFA,

I am glad you are still Organizing for America — we need the activated grassroots energy that swept Mr. Obama into office to keep things moving forward. But I have to share with you things that are really bugging me in the “Health INSURANCE Reform” debate — the first one is just that, the language you started using.

When the healthcare debate got started, you hooked me into supporting the President’s ideas with the words “Health Care Reform.” Then once I had heard the horror stories, and was spoiling for a fight to support these much-needed reforms (which sounded good) , suddenly you altered the language, subtly, adding the word INSURANCE, to make it “Health Insurance Reform,” not Health Care Reform. If I understand correctly, insurance is something you purchase for a fee from a for-profit insurance corporation, is generally employer-based, and is only indirectly connected to health care.

So why are the high-powered grass-roots OFA organizers now being organized, essentially, to strategize and advance a plan that keeps for-profit insurance in control of health care?

Next point: today, it comes out in the New York Times that Big Pharma’s big-money lobbying arm, “PhRMA” has now hired PR firms including Obama for America’s expert David Axelrod’s old firm for $3 million per day to lobby for “Health Insurance Reform.”

Do you think progressives should be concerned about these OFA/Axelrod/Big Pharma connections? Exactly who is making money lobbying for Big Pharma’s health care agenda, painting it with Obama’s colors and making it “Hopey & Changey?” How much more money will Pharma make off the proposed ‘reform’ agenda? They aren’t kicking in $150 million in August alone for nothing.

What happened to the promise OFA originally hooked me with, of moving towards a system that lowered costs and expanded coverage to all?

Am I being bamboozled? Maybe I’ll find out on the conference call you’ve invited me to with David Axelrod, whose PR firm is front and center of the PhRMA campaign.

I admit it: when massive amounts of corporate money starts being spent on an agenda, while the organizational infrastructure I thought I could trust now “moves the goalposts” and alters the message to INSURANCE REFORM, I get a bad feeling I’ve been suckered.

Tell me I’m not becoming paranoid: my health insurance plan doesn’t cover that.

Mike Copass
PDA Metro San Diego

http://www.newser.com/story/66443/pharma-to-push-obama-plan-in-150m-ad-blitz.html

Newser Summary) – Drug companies have authorized their lobbyists to spend up to $150 million on TV ads supporting Barack Obama’s health care reform plan—a surprisingly large sum that suggests the industry still has a deal with the White House on capping pharma’s costs, reports the New York Times. A few spots that have already aired echo Democratic talking points about consumer protection and universal coverage. The connections run deep—one of the agencies involved is David Axelrod’s old firm.

Democrats in Congress have bridled at an agreement struck with the White House last June, in which the drug industry agreed to pay $80 billion over 10 years into health reform. The terms of the deal were not made fully public, and it’s unclear just what drug companies are getting in return—although the industry stands to pick up millions more customers as health care coverage expands.