This was an interesting article from MSNBC about a group that is working “under the radar” to oppose healthcare reform. As the story states, there is no listing of sponsors, although the law firm attached to the cause represents many in different areas of healthcare. The Blues in North Carolina have denied any affiliation, but as the article states, their clients include hospitals insurers and other healthcare companies. There is no phone number listed and the domain is hidden. This sounds interesting, a website with a cause that wants to be kept a secret, wonder why?
Would we perhaps be shocked or unhappy about finding out who the sponsors are? BD
WASHINGTON - One operative tried to enlist trade groups in Maine to oppose government-run health coverage. Another helped a member of a Las Vegas conservative group appear on local talk radio to criticize the proposal. A third persuaded a Louisiana activist to post an opinion piece on a conservative blog.
These below-the-radar activities were the handiwork of a law firm in Charlotte, N.C., that operates a secretive group called Americans for Quality and Affordable Healthcare. The organization's sponsors remain a mystery — its Web site offers no clues, and the law firm won't say.
One clue to the mystery group may lie in its goals: to oppose any government-run insurance option, the approach favored by President Barack Obama and most Democrats, and to support requiring all Americans to buy insurance.
The group's Web site says publicly run insurance would "drive all the major players out of the healthcare market," and it includes a page that lets people easily e-mail members of Congress to express those views.
Presented evidence that the activities in Maine, Nevada and Louisiana involved employees of Moore & Van Allen, one of North Carolina's larger law firms, the firm's spokesman Matthew French acknowledged the connection and said the firm runs the health care group for clients. He declined to name them, but he referred to "member companies of AQAH," the group's acronym.
Moore & Van Allen has more than 300 attorneys and numbers financial, manufacturing, technology and health companies among its clients, although it won't name them. It says they include "some of America's foremost hospitals, multi-institutional health care systems, physician groups, specialty providers, lenders and insurers." The site does not reveal its sponsorship or provide an address or phone number, unusual for an Internet site trying to arouse public action. Even the owner of the site's Internet domain name is hidden, officially registered to Domains By Proxy Inc., a Scottsdale, Ariz., company that shields the real owner's identity.
Secretive front group battles health bill - Health care reform- msnbc.com
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