With Insurance Policy Comes Membership (in Conserative Group)

[donsu]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/22/AR2006072200683.html

Unbeknown to Some, Those Signing Up With Firm Are Joining Conservative Group

In 2001, Jennifer B. Chace heard an insurance broker's pitch for a new insurance company marketing tax-free medical savings accounts. She jumped at the offer, but first, the broker told her, she would have to sign an application -- already filled out -- that would entitle her to a low group rate.

With that signature, Chace, a Florida dentist in the market for health insurance, unwittingly joined one of Washington's most prominent conservative organizations, Citizens for a Sound Economy, she would later testify.

-snip-

Chace's experience has brought to light an obscure arrangement between a prominent Republican businessman, J. Patrick Rooney, and a free-market interest group that has netted the grass-roots organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of new members. Citizens for a Sound Economy -- now called FreedomWorks and headed by former House majority leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) -- has netted more than $638,000 and about 16,000 members through the sale of insurance policies.

-snip-

FreedomWorks and its predecessor, CSE, were careful about the deal's financial aspects. In a Sept. 13, 2000, letter, CSE's Quinn said documents should overtly refer to dues, suggesting they be set at $12 a year, to be raised at CSE's discretion upon notifying Medical Savings Insurance Co. She also noted: "I would assume that these people will become CSE members for all purposes and therefore will go on the CSE mailing list. Since the CSE mailing list is rented, as a matter of course, those names would be rented as CSE members . . . without specific identification as MSIC insureds."
-snip-
-----------------------------------------

Richard Armey is a criminal punk

[AndyA]

1. Why does this not surprise me? The GOP are such slimeballs.

They will stop at nothing to get what they want. Further proof that you have to read everything you sign, and that includes the fine print. What Nazis.

[AX10]

2. Armey should be imprisoned.