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www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...43.html
"...The campaign is being coordinated by CRC Public Relations, the group that masterminded the "Swift boat" attacks against 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry, ....
..Conservatives for Patients' Rights spent about $600,000 a month on ads in March and April but is ratcheting up its buy for May to more than $1 million, CRC representatives said. Scott has also spent recent weeks meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill and addressing conservative groups in Washington, including the influential weekly breakfast organized by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.
Scott said he has met with "some Democrats" but acknowledged that most of those aligned with his views are Republicans.
"I believe that free-market principles will solve our health-care problems," Scott said, adding that he was successful in cutting costs and improving customer satisfaction at both Columbia/HCA and his Solantic clinics.
For the moment, Scott's campaign is a relatively independent operation, in part because major insurers, hospitals and other health-care providers have muted their criticism in hopes of shaping the outcome of a final reform package. The situation is remarkably different from that in the early 1990s, when the insurance industry bankrolled the "Harry and Louise" ads, which featured a fictional couple worrying about a nationalized health-care system.
The void has left Republicans somewhat adrift. In a 28-page memo circulated among lawmakers this week, prominent GOP pollster Frank Luntz urged Republicans to be "on the side of REFORM" and warned against direct attacks on the popular president. Instead, Luntz wrote, Republicans should warn about a "takeover" by "Washington bureaucrats" who would force patients to "stand in line" for care.
One senior Democratic staffer involved in the health-care debate said the arguments by Luntz, Scott and others are "distractions" that rely on distortions of the actual debate taking place in the House and Senate. Reform advocates note that many of the problems highlighted by Scott, such as long waits and shoddy care, are already major problems in the United States under the private insurance system.
Democrats especially bristle at the central allegation in Scott's advertisements: that they hope to create a fully government-run, or "single-payer," health system of the kind seen in Canada and Britain. In fact, Obama and Democratic leaders have effectively ruled out that option in discussions so far, leading angry left-wing activists to disrupt a Senate hearing on the issue last week.
"We are not Europe. We are not Canada," Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is leading the debate over a health-care plan as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a recent speech. "We need a uniquely American solution. It has to be a partnership of public and private players."
"...The campaign is being coordinated by CRC Public Relations, the group that masterminded the "Swift boat" attacks against 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry, ....
..Conservatives for Patients' Rights spent about $600,000 a month on ads in March and April but is ratcheting up its buy for May to more than $1 million, CRC representatives said. Scott has also spent recent weeks meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill and addressing conservative groups in Washington, including the influential weekly breakfast organized by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.
Scott said he has met with "some Democrats" but acknowledged that most of those aligned with his views are Republicans.
"I believe that free-market principles will solve our health-care problems," Scott said, adding that he was successful in cutting costs and improving customer satisfaction at both Columbia/HCA and his Solantic clinics.
For the moment, Scott's campaign is a relatively independent operation, in part because major insurers, hospitals and other health-care providers have muted their criticism in hopes of shaping the outcome of a final reform package. The situation is remarkably different from that in the early 1990s, when the insurance industry bankrolled the "Harry and Louise" ads, which featured a fictional couple worrying about a nationalized health-care system.
The void has left Republicans somewhat adrift. In a 28-page memo circulated among lawmakers this week, prominent GOP pollster Frank Luntz urged Republicans to be "on the side of REFORM" and warned against direct attacks on the popular president. Instead, Luntz wrote, Republicans should warn about a "takeover" by "Washington bureaucrats" who would force patients to "stand in line" for care.
One senior Democratic staffer involved in the health-care debate said the arguments by Luntz, Scott and others are "distractions" that rely on distortions of the actual debate taking place in the House and Senate. Reform advocates note that many of the problems highlighted by Scott, such as long waits and shoddy care, are already major problems in the United States under the private insurance system.
Democrats especially bristle at the central allegation in Scott's advertisements: that they hope to create a fully government-run, or "single-payer," health system of the kind seen in Canada and Britain. In fact, Obama and Democratic leaders have effectively ruled out that option in discussions so far, leading angry left-wing activists to disrupt a Senate hearing on the issue last week.
"We are not Europe. We are not Canada," Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is leading the debate over a health-care plan as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a recent speech. "We need a uniquely American solution. It has to be a partnership of public and private players."
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