Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC

Backlash Grows Against NC Health Insurer's Anti-Reform Campaign

Zachary Roth | November 27, 2009, 11:04AM

Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC)

This post was reported by Nick Pinto, and written by Nick Pinto and Zachary Roth

A North Carolina health insurer is facing a major backlash in the wake of its campaign to enlist customers in the fight against health-care reform.

The state's Insurance Commissioner has begun an inquiry into a mailer sent recently by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina -- and first revealed last month by TPMmuckraker -- that urged customers to lobby Senator Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) to vote against the public option. As we reported Tuesday, the state's Attorney General has opened his own probe of a barrage of follow-up robo-calls generated by the insurer. And state lawmakers continue to express their own and their constituents' outrage at the effort, with one legislator telling TPMmuckraker that some recipients of the mailer sent it back to BCBS attached to a brick.

Read more »

American Future Fund

GOP Group Undermining Robo-Call Laws Has Ties To DCI

Zachary Roth | November 24, 2009, 5:37PM

American Future Fund (AFF), the shadowy conservative advocacy group that's working to undermine state laws against robo-calling, has ties to DCI Group, a Republican lobbying firm with a reputation for dirty tricks and shady clients. And a closer look at AFF suggests the group has been designed to carry out political attacks while escaping scrutiny from the press and public.

AFF paid $249,000 last year to McKenna & Associates for fundraising work, according to a copy of AFF's 990 form for 2008 that was obtained by TPMmuckraker. The Arlington, Virginia-based firm is run by Andrew McKenna, a GOP operative and former senior vice-president of DCI Group. McKenna did not immediately respond to TPMmuckraker's request for comment.

Read more »

Health Care

MoJo Turns Spotlight On Far-Right Doctors' Group

Zachary Roth | November 18, 2009, 12:14PM

Dr. David McKalip

Mother Jones takes a close look at the far-right doctor's group to which David McKalip -- the Florida neurosurgeon who sent that racist picture of President Obama as a witch doctor -- belongs.

Lately, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) has been teaming up with the Tea Partiers to fight health-care reform. But as Mother Jones shows, the group is so far out there it makes its Tea Party allies look like David Broder.

Read more »

Health Care

Business Lobbyist: Health-Care Study Should Be Buried If It Comes Out Positive

Zachary Roth | November 18, 2009, 10:32AM

A lobbyist working with the Chamber of Commerce says that if a planned study on the economic impact of health-care reform doesn't support the business community's agenda, he'd recommend burying it.

"If you're doing something like this you want it to be back up the position you've taken," Brian Worth of the International Electrical Contractors (IEC) told TPMmuckraker. If the report showed that reform wouldn't cause significant job losses, said Worth, "I would say sit on it, and don't release it."

Read more »

CREW

CREW: Bachmann Rally May Have Violated House Rules

Zachary Roth | November 17, 2009, 12:29PM

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)

A recent rally against health-care reform, organized on the Capitol steps by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), may have violated House rules.

The good-government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is asking the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to probe whether Bachmann misused her congressional website in publicizing the rally.

Read more »

Chamber of Commerce

Chamber Funding Study To Show Health-Care Reform Will "Kill Jobs"

Zachary Roth | November 17, 2009, 11:48AM

The Chamber of Commerce, an ardent foe of health-care reform, is raising money to fund an economic study on the impact of the legislation on the economy. Unsurprisingly, the Chamber anticipates that the study will find that reform will "kill jobs."

James Gelfand, the Chamber's senior health policy manager, wrote an email to allies that suggested spending $50,000 to hire a "respected economist" to put together the report. The email was obtained by the Washington Post.

Read more »

Lobbyists

Lawmakers' Statements On Health-Care Reform Were Ghost-Written By Lobbyists: Report

Zachary Roth | November 16, 2009, 3:05PM

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC)

Here's one of those stories that point up the utter sleaziness of the cozy lawmaker-lobbyist relationships that continue to shape so much of what Congress does.

The New York Times reports that lobbyists for a major biotech company, Genentech, wrote statements that were then put into the Congressional Record under the names of more than a dozen lawmakers of both parties.

Read more »

Tea Party Express

Party Foul! Tea Partiers Eat Their Own In Bitter Internal Feud

Zachary Roth | November 12, 2009, 5:08PM

The Tea Party movement is being ripped apart by bitter internal rancor, highlighted by a lawsuit against a former leader, vituperative name-calling, and charges of financial mismanagement and corruption.

As we told you this morning, board members for the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) this week filed suit against Amy Kremer, a former TPP leader who fell out with the group over her involvement with a rival Tea Party faction, the Tea Party Express. And on Tuesday, a judge granted a preliminary injunction, ordering Kremer to return control of the TPP websites to the board, and to stop representing herself as a TPP spokeswoman.

Read more »

Tea Party Patriots

Tea Partiers Get Set For Hectic Final Push Against Health-Care Reform

Zachary Roth | November 2, 2009, 4:07PM

Declaring that "this is our battle of Trenton," Tea Party activists are gearing up for a last stand against the health-care reform effort they see as putting the country on a glide-path to socialism.

With the House set to vote on reform as early as this week, Tea Party Patriot leaders yesterday sent out a lengthy email to volunteers -- forwarded to TPMmuckraker -- announcing "It's Make or Break Time with Health Care," and laying out a frenetic schedule of direct lobbying activities for the next few days, including phone calls and in-person visits to members of both houses of Congress.

Read more »