The Wonk Room:AHIP’s Astrotuf Consulting Firm Also Hosts Anti-EFCA Website For Former AFP Affiliate

[Omaha Steve]

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/08/27/data-iwf/

Over at ThinkProgress, Lee Fang lays out how America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) has enlisted the corporate consulting firm Democracy Data & Communications (DDC) to host its “grassroots” lobbying campaign against the public option. As Fang points out, “DDC has made a name for itself as one of the most effective stealth lobbying firms.”


Independent Women's Forum president and CEO Michelle Bernard

Earlier this summer, DDC was caught using a front group called ‘Citizens for a Safe Alexandria’ to attack the Obama administration for seeking to prosecute Guantanamo Bay prisoners in Alexandria, VA. DDC also helped to orchestrate “grassroots” support for President Bush’s push to privatize Social Security. And the group is evidently not through helping advocates of anti-worker policies.

Case in point, according to a list of DDC-hosted domains obtained by ThinkProgress, DDC is hosting the website EFCA-info.org, which is chock-full of misinformation regarding the Employee Free Choice Act (in multiple languages, no less). Though EFCA-info purports to be “a website dedicated to providing visitors with factual and up-to-date information regarding the Employee Free Choice Act,” it spreads various falsehoods about EFCA eliminating the secret ballot or destroying small businesses. And it’s no surprise that the site has this slant, once you look at who keeps it going.

FULL story at link.