The health industry uses large tobacco strategies for health insurance for everyone

Private health insurers spent more than $1 million on Facebook and Instagram ads that used classic large tobacco marketing strategies to generate opposition to the U.S. General Health Insurance policy, analysed a new study, according to a massive social media campaign.

This study reveals how the future partnership for healthcare in the United States adopts cluttered fears, misinformation, and target messaging technologies pioneered by tobacco companies to protect their profits from potential health insurance under all policies.

Published in PLOS Global Public Health, the study examines 1,675 paid ads presented to more than 40 million dollar platform users between 2018 and 2021, revealing complex strategies designed to undermine the public’s support for universal healthcare expansion.

The campaign provides anti-Michigan news to 40 million users

Researchers from the London School of Health and Tropical Medicine analyzed a comprehensive advertising campaign initiated by the American Healthcare Future (PAHCF), a coalition of 124 members of the health industry, including the American Medical Association and the Blue Cross Blue Shield.

The campaign has received 32.6 million to 40.7 million impressions on Facebook and Instagram, targeting specific demographic information, with its carefully crafted information designed to create fear of potential health care reform. These ads focus on five major general health care policies: health insurance for everyone, public option plans, health insurance purchases and other government insurance systems.

Analysis shows that 59% of ads claim that universal health care will impose higher costs, while 48% threaten to reduce access to quality care. Under any government-operated system, the most common avoidance of warning Americans that they must “pay more to wait for longer care.”

Tobacco industry scripts for healthcare

The study identified striking similarities between PAHCF’s tactics and strategies long-used tobacco companies and other “unhealthy commodity industries” to oppose public health policy. These include creating questions about policy interests, distorting legislative intent, and causing false grassroots opposition.

These ads systematically exaggerate potential costs while dismissing the benefits of generally reported, a classic tobacco industry approach. They warned of fear-based messaging of government controls “large government bureaucracy” and advised politicians to impose “all of a certain size” health care on unwilling Americans.

Revealed key activity strategies:

• Targeted specific groups including families, mothers, seniors and rural communities
• Use personal proof of obvious citizens to create grassroots legality
• Systematic misrepresentation of research results, no citation or evidence
• Promote false equivalence among different policy proposals
• Hiring patriotic messaging while undermining government health care role

Strategic objectives of disadvantaged groups

The demographic data specifically targeted by the campaign is most likely to be affected by changes in health care, including American families (30% advertising), general Americans (28%), mothers (15%), patients (7%), older adults (4%), and rural communities (3%). Each group receives tailored messages designed to exploit their specific vulnerabilities and concerns.

Advertising often features visual representations of these groups, with children, seniors, rural Americans with tractors, and warns how universal health care will particularly harm their interests. Message delivery takes advantage of existing economic anxiety and health care issues.

This approach reflects the tobacco industry’s strategy of identifying “deserved” groups allegedly harmed by public health policies, while ignoring wider population welfare. The strategy creates wrong constituencies against reform, which will actually benefit public health.

Social media amplifies traditional lobbying strategies

The study highlights how social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram provide powerful new tools for traditional lobbying strategies. Meta’s positioning capability enables PAHCF to achieve specific demographics with unprecedented accuracy, and the platform refuses fact-checking political advertising, making misleading communication unrestricted.

The study found that the information of PAHCF directly contradicted the established evidence about the healthcare system. Despite spending nearly 17% of health care services on health care, the U.S. ranks last among high-income countries in health care, twice as much as its peer country in terms of efficiency and outcomes.

“With the new budget bill just passed in the United States, nearly 12 million Americans may lose their health care opportunities,” the researchers noted. “Movements such as the Future Partnership for Healthcare in the United States use Meta’s advertising tools to target people and influence their voting behavior around policy reforms such as Medicaid, which is very important for the focus.”

Industry Profits and Public Health

The campaign is health insurance for all the political attraction that gains political attraction in the 2020 presidential election cycle, where prominent Democratic candidates recognize various general reports. The private health insurance market generates approximately $670 billion a year and faces huge profit threats from government-operated alternatives.

Analysis shows that PAHCF messaging systematically ignores evidence that universal health care may reduce state spending by 13.1% each year while expanding coverage to 31.6 million uninsured Americans. Instead, advertising promotes fears of tax increases and government control while positioning private insurers as patient advocates.

Researchers stress how this represents a broader “healthy business determinant” – business players affect health outcomes through marketing, lobbying and political activities aimed at protecting profits rather than improving public welfare.

“With fact-checking policies in the U.S. earlier this year, and the continued transparency around political advertising targeting, their platform offers large-scale opportunities for the health-damaging industry to engage in strategies that profit at the expense of public health,” the author concluded.

These findings underline a growing concern about how social media platforms can achieve complex misunderstanding campaigns that could impact major policy debates that affect healthcare visits and outcomes for millions of Americans.

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