Chamber of Commerce on Wrong Side of History — Again

The Chamber of Commerce is quickly becoming a testament to an organization that refuses to embrace the fact that the world is changing and that they need to change with it. First, they are one of just a few relevant organizations that still deny the role humans play in climate change. This has cost them such big name business partners such as Apple, Nike, Pacific Gas & Electric and Exelon.

Now as I'm watching television on a Sunday night, I'm hit with an incredibly misleading (and desperate) ad about health care, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. It also encourages me to call congressman John Boccieri and ask him to vote no on health care. Why would the Chamber of Commerce want to kill a bill that is going to help thousands of small businesses across the country by lessening the burden of health care that is crushing them? Well insurance money, of course:

Just as dealings with the Obama administration and congressional Democrats soured last summer, six of the nation's biggest health insurers began quietly pumping big money into third-party television ads aimed at killing or significantly modifying the major health reform bills moving through Congress.

That money, between $10 million and $20 million, came from Aetna, Cigna, Humana, Kaiser Foundation Health Plans, UnitedHealth Group and Wellpoint, according to two health care lobbyists familiar with the transactions. The companies are all members of the powerful trade group America's Health Insurance Plans.

The funds were solicited by AHIP and funneled to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to help underwrite tens of millions of dollars of television ads by two business coalitions set up and subsidized by the chamber. Each insurer kicked in at least $1 million and some gave multimillion-dollar donations. [National Journal, 1/13/10]

Read more