Show Me the Money!
- September 2, 2009
Anyone who is a movie buff doubtless
recalls the title of this blog entry as a phrase from the Tom Cruise movie
“Jerry Maguire” in a phone conversation between Maguire and his client
Tidwell. In addition it was also the name of a very short-lived television
game show starring William Shatner in 2006
Another term that we should examine
is “payola” which came into our lexicon in the 1960’s when record producers
provided cash incentives for disk jockeys in order to gain additional air
time for their client’s recordings.
During the last decade or so another
series of words began to gain more use and they were “quid pro quo” which
when translated from the Latin means "something for something" and it has
been heard quite often during trial proceedings for bribery or extortion.
Notwithstanding, the usage of these
terms I would proffer could be descriptive of the near daily dialogue occurring
between health care industry representatives and many members of the U.S.
House and Senate.
Mind you now that I am not accusing
any Member of Congress of accepting bribes. Nonetheless I can think
of no other reason for the vigorous vehemence vociferated virtually at
every media moment.
It’s just that ever since the various
Congressional Committees commenced consideration of the health care reform
legislation the rhetoric has ramped up significantly. Of course then
we have all the conscripted crazies present at the town hall meetings who
certainly emulate the Nazi “Brown Shirts” in shouting down any view contrary
to their own.
The themes for the opposition to health
care reform are too well crafted and synchronized to not have been centrally
created. Surely an advertising agency or agencies somewhere have
their fingerprints on the script. Concomitantly, you can rest
assured that the creative work was not performed pro bono and the fingerprints
on the payments would likely be recognizable.
Surely the funding has come from those
that stand to lose the most if reform comes to health care. Pocketing
more than a fair profit annually from health services and provisions delivered
to their clients are the insurance industry giants. These mega corporations
certainly would become immediate beneficiaries of a stalled or killed reform
movement.
Even if we shouted our thematic as stated
above; “Show me the Money!” I doubt that we might see something as
obvious as the hand above handing out money. However, we only need
to consider who gains and who loses and the picture to me is plain as day!
