May 18, 2009 1:38PM # Irony! Get Your Red-Hot Health-Care Irony! By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) --- SHARE Someone forwarded me an [email update](http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2009/05/pr20090518/index.htmlv) from our friends at the [Center for American Progress Action Fund](http://www.americanprogressaction.org/) (motto: “Disagree with us? Then you hate progress.”). In one blurb, CAPAF’s crack team of spin-disclosers chides Republicans for discussing health care reform using the language [recommended](http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/frank-luntz-the-language-of-healthcare-20091.pdf) by pollster Frank Luntz, who “advised Republicans to fearmonger” Obama’s proposals *to death*! Or something. The same email had another blurb titled, “**INSURANCE COMPANIES** AT THE TABLE?” There, CAPAF’s crack team of spin-disclosers describe how “**health insurance companies** and lobbying groups” stood beside President Obama last week to announce their support for reducing spending growth. The blurb continues: > However, days later, **the insurance companies tried to walk back their promises**, saying Obama had overstated their commitments. Richard Umbdenstock, the president of the American Hospital Association, wrote to his company’s state and local affiliates to “clarify” that “\[t\]he groups did not support reducing the rate of health spending by 1.5 percentage points annually.” However, the letter to Obama signed by Umbdenstock **and the other insurance leaders** specifically pledged… “*Umbdenstock and the other insurance leaders*”?? Since when do we classify hospitals as insurance companies? And if “the insurance companies…sa\[y\] Obama had overstated their commitments,” why not quote the insurance companies? Could they not find such a quote? It’s as if CAPAF’s crack team of spin-disclosers has decided to blame every development that might threaten a — ahem — *government take-over of health care* on the insurance companies. Now why might they want to do that? Could it be because insurance companies are less popular than hospitals? And how would CAPAF’s crack team of spin-disclosers know that? By listening to a … pollster? ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).