United Health Group's Misleading Promises

[antigop]

http://wendellpotter.com/2012/06/unitedhealth-groups-misleading-promises/

I have seen a lot of masterful work in purposeful misdirection over the years, but I can’t recall a PR coup to top this one.

Here’s how it was planned and executed—with brilliance.

It was important to have the initial stories appear on Monday, typically a slow news day. To ensure that positive stories would make it into the country’s leading publications, the PR team “leaked” the news release to a few key reporters Sunday night with a strict embargo until Monday morning.

It was clear to me that UnitedHealth “declined” to make any company official available—at least “on the record”—Sunday night because “rude” questions would have been asked. So the stories that appeared Monday and over subsequent days did not have answers to critically important questions about whether the company would “honor” the many other provisions of the reform law that will benefit most Americans if the Court rules against it. Since reporters obviously were not able to interview UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley, they were stuck with the quote attributed to him in the news release: “The protections we are voluntarily extending are good for people’s health, promote broader access to quality care and contribute to helping control rising health care costs.” That happy talk was published, verbatim in most cases, by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Forbes, CNN, MSNBC, the Associated Press, Bloomberg and Reuters, to name just a few.

What’s worse is that most reporters didn’t bother to mention that what UnitedHealth said it would do would apply to just a small fraction of the 36 million people the company says are enrolled in its various medical plans. The company said that regardless of the Court ruling it would continue to allow young adults to stay on their parents’ policies until age 26, offer preventive services without copayments, eliminate lifetime coverage limits, not “rescind” policies except in cases of fraud and provide “clear and timely options for appeals”. Most readers of the company’s press release would probably assume that it was talking about all 36 million. I did the first time I read it. As it turns out, though, the vast majority of people enrolled in plans administered by UnitedHealth could find out that none of those assurances would be applicable to them.

See this thread for background:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014140785

[cbayer]

1. I knew it! Kudos to this author.