The insurance companies are off and running and their lobbyists are going to be extremely busy. The gaming of the new system has already begun in state legislators’ and insurance commissioners’ offices, and in regulatory drafting committees far away from scrutiny by the media and the public. Let’s just hope the whole thing is not completely gutted between now and 2014 when the biggest changes to health care begin.

Now that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been exposed as nothing but a hack-for-hire for the insurance industry, it’s worth looking at where exactly the insurance company/Chamber ads ran and how much media they bought to gauge the full breadth of duplicity and impact.

The fact that the insurance industry and AHIP is behind the health care attack ads from the Chamber of Commerce is something we (and others) have suspected for months now. It’s finally been proven by Peter Stone at the National Journal.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce | Photo via SEIU/William Melton on Flickr
This shouldn’t surprise anyone, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been voted the 2009 Scrooge of the Year.

I’ve had a lot of concerns about the neoliberal agenda that seems to drive much of what comes out of the White House. But if there’s been one strategy that I wholeheartedly concur with, it has been their effort to dismantle the Chamber of Commerce and disempower Fox.

The Chamber of Commerce—that’s the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—proved once again how anti-American it is when it comes to supporting U.S. industry.

In Findlay, Ohio, unions had been organizing a parade and all-day event for this Saturday to highlight American-made products and the need for U.S. trade and economic policies that reward job growth in this country.