While Obama may be turning up the heat on his push for health care reform, the other side is pulling out the big guns as well…or trying to. Just yesterday the group Get Health Reform Right, which is funded by the insurance industry, sent out a grassroots email to garner support (or spread rhetoric and scare Americans into fearing a government-run public option that will provide health care for all- whichever way you want to look at it) for their mission.

Jason Rosenbaum from Health Care for America NOW (HCAN) cleverly deciphered the email and re-wrote it in order to present its true meaning:

The health care reform debate is heating up in Washington and our profits have a stake in the outcome. Draft health reform legislation in the House of Representatives is now under consideration.  While this draft legislation takes some of the critical steps needed to transform our health care system and expand coverage, it also forces us to compete and actually provide health insurance, or lose money. We don’t like that.

We keep saying that it is critically important to enact comprehensive health care reform this year, but we’re really worried that our CEOs won’t be able to take that 2nd vacation this year if our profits get cut a couple percentage points. So we’re going to tell people that offering them a choice of a public health insurance option somehow will cause them to lose health care. It’s not true, but it sure is scary! And if we scare them enough, maybe they’ll complain to their Members of Congress!

If we actually had to compete, we couldn’t pay our CEOs billions, and we would have to stop denying care for pre-existing conditions. That would be a big problem – for us. And of course, though we’ve argued for years that government is so incompetent that it can’t do anything, we’re going to pretend that we’re so vulnerable that we can’t compete with government. Yes, we know this doesn’t make sense, but we’re going to say it anyway. If we make it sound scary enough, people might not realize they would love to choose to dump us if they could, and that most of them (76%) support giving us a bit of competition.

We hate competition, and so we’re against health reform. And we’re trying to scare you so you are, too.

Boo!

Kudos Jason.  It is clear that the insurance industry is fond of sending clever emails and letters and is counting on their fear-mongering and contributions to members of Congress to get them through this debate.

Well, we’re not gonna let that happen. When Congress returns from their holiday recess, Campus Progress will decend upon the Hill, with over 200 young people, to lobby Congress for health care reform – and demand a public option. We will also be lobbying for a stronger climate bill out of the Senate, and for college affordability through supporting Obama’s direct lending proposal. Get Ready.

(If you’d like to join Campus Progress’ National Lobby Day- apply now!)