How corporate P.R. works to kill healthcare reform
Health insurers have become expert at using P.R. to get what they want. I got out before the latest round
One of the reasons I left my job at CIGNA, where I headed corporate communications and was part of the Legal & Public Affairs division, was because I did not want to be involved in yet another P.R. and lobbying campaign to kill or gut reform. I finally came to question the ethics of what I had done and been a part of for nearly two decades to influence decision making and bill writing on Capitol Hill.
Buckley, Reagan and the original conservatives must be turning in their graves. Reagan was politically and media savvy - he would have seen this as a total public relations disaster.
i don't know if St Peter has seen to wong foo - hopefully he has so he is prepared :)
“I’m trying to remember if I’ve met her before. I’m sure I must have.” His eyes twinkled, then he asked, “What is she, the governor of Guam?”
Everyone in the room seemed to look at him in horror, their mouths agape. When Ed told him that conservatives were greeting the choice enthusiastically, he replied, “Look, I’m a team player, I’m on board.” He thought about it for a minute. “She’s interesting,” he said again. “You know, just wait a few days until the bloom is off the rose.” Then he made a very smart assessment.
“This woman is being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for,” he said. “She hasn’t spent one day on the national level. Neither has her family. Let’s wait and see how she looks five days out.” It was a rare dose of reality in a White House that liked to believe every decision was great."
Ann Minch ohas carried a balance of several thousand dollars on her Bank of America credit card, making minimum monthly payments of about $130, sometimes paying an extra $50 or $100. She says she's never missed a payment.
Bank of America rewarded her loyalty this year by repeatedly randomly raising her interest rate, which reached 30 percent in July.
Fed up, the 46-year-old stepmother of two turned to YouTube.
Minch said she hadn't been paying much attention to her account -- she didn't even notice when her interest rate went from 12.99 percent to 25.49 percent in January -- but that the more she read about the $700 billion bank bailout, the angrier she got. Still, the decision to stage her one-woman revolt wasn't easy.
"When I finally made my decision about what I needed to do, it was scary," she said. "I knew I was probably going to ruin my credit."
Minch sent Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis a letter demanding that he watch her video and get in touch.
"If you would like to collect payment for this account, it will be necessary for you to view my video and then contact me with your response," she wrote. "The video will take less than 5 minutes of your time, which I know must be extremely valuable because of the gargantuan amount of money you are paid."
Minch said that regular folks will continue getting "bent over" by the government and the global financial industry unless consumers take a stand.
"Tea parties and letters to representatives hasn't done squat," she said. "We need to form a cyber revolution."
"Dean Qiongxiu, 66, said she discovered the reptile clinging to the wall of her bedroom with its talons in the middle of the night. 'I woke up and heard a strange scratching sound. I turned on the light and saw this monster working its way along the wall using his claw,' said Mrs Duan of Suining, southwest China."
It's apparently a mutation and not some kind of new, undiscovered, stuff-of-nightmares species (or Photoshop creation, though I'm suspicious). Still, I think it'd be 'lights on' for a few weeks after that experience.
More details about the film, which is a film adaptation by fashion designer tom ford of the Christopher Ishwerwood novel of the same name, HERE.
