I just watched MM's "Sicko" for the first time, and something immediately struck me...

[solarhydrocan]

9. AHIP and "Sicko"

AHIP: America's Health Insurance Plans
is a national political advocacy and trade association with about 1,300 member companies that sell health insurance coverage to more than 200 million Americans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America's_Health_Insurance_Plans

On the July 10, 2009 edition of Bill Moyers Journal, Wendell Potter, former Vice President of corporate communications at the health insurance corporation CIGNA, claimed that the industry was "afraid" of the Michael Moore documentary Sicko.[11]

transcript here
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/transcript2.html

As a result, AHIP formed a strategy to "discredit this film".[12] As part of the reporting on this allegation, Bill Moyers Journal provides May 2007 and June 2007 drafts of a memo entitled "Ensuring Accurate Perceptions of the Health Insurance Industry".[13][14]

This memo outlines the strategy the health insurance industry would use to battle Moore’s documentary. The later draft lists the following as the "5 Strategies We Reached Consensus On":


1. "Debate the System, not the Anecdotes. Set the record straight then get off Moore’s turf and on to ours."

2. "Reframe the Debate: Mount Campaign against a Government-run Health Care system."

3. "Define the Health Insurance as Part of the Solution."

4. "Caution Democrats Against Aligning with Moore’s Extremist Agenda."

5. "Game Plan for Various Potential Scenarios."

The AHIP memos do not list any factual errors in Sicko. The memos instead focus primarily on media messaging in terms of influencing politicians and public opinion.

AHIP's Karen Ignagni: Probably the single biggest factor in getting Obama to reverse his position on mandated health insurance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Ignagni