Framing health care reform

So Republicans now use the phrase "government takeover" to describe changes to the private insurance industry's practices of denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions, rescission during sickness and offering a voluntary public option (a Medicare-like plan) to a small segment of the population. The logical and evidential problems with their arguments don't even matter to opponents of reform. It's as simple as, "Government = bad. Reform = government. Reform = bad!"

It seems many CEO's aren't so stupid:


From the BRT report:

"The report also shows that reform done wrong ... could make a bad situation much worse, in which case Business Roundtable could not support the bill," Eastman Kodak (EK.N: 行情) Company Chairman and Chief Executive Antonio Perez said in a statement accompanying the release of the report.

Obama said it was further evidence that the U.S. healthcare system is broken.

"If we don't pass comprehensive reform, the report finds, health care costs that are already squeezing our businesses will continue to rise, and in 10 years, employment-based spending on health care for large employers will be fully 166 percent higher per employee than it is today," the president said in a statement.

"The yearly health insurance costs for the average employee will rise to a staggering $28,530," he added, citing a finding by the report.

Companies represented by the Business Roundtable, which includes such giants as Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ.N: 行情), The Boeing Company (BA.N: 行情) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM.N: 行情), provide health insurance to more than 35 million workers and their families. The group has been a major force behind the healthcare overhaul push.

Of course, the fact that businesses support real reform doesn't help the lies and propaganda effort to kill change by the GOP, so they're pretty pissed about it.