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.”

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.

The site is supported by the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) and the HR Policy Association, along with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the National Black Chamber of Commerce. The IWF, according to SourceWatch, “is an anti-feminist organization predominately funded by conservative U.S. foundations.” IWF is funded by Koch Industries, which also funds Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and FreedomWorks, both of which were instrumental in organizing the anti-Obama tea party protests. [See response from Koch Industries below]

In fact, from 2003 to 2008, the IWF and AFP operated out of the same office space and had the same president — Nancy Pfotenhauer, a consistent member of the Koch Industries family and former spokeswoman for Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign. Currently, the IWF is headed by Michelle Bernard, who earlier this month appeared on MSNBC to declare that “quite honestly, a lot of labor unions are what holds America back and keeps us from being as good as we can be.”

This circle of groups — funded by Koch’s petro-dollars — are trying to derail reform on a variety of fronts, under the guise of grassroots lobbying. And they’re doing it with the aid of DDC’s servers.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that AHIP — the multimillion dollar lobbying juggernaut for the health insurance industry — has mobilized 50,000 employees to lobby Congress to defeat the public option. ThinkProgress has learned that AHIP’s grassroots lobbying is being managed by the corporate consulting firm Democracy Data & Communications. DDC has made a name for itself as one of the most effective stealth lobbying firms. Earlier this summer, DDC was caught by reporters 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.

According to the server-information hub Domaintools.com, the AHIP grassroots outreach website AHIPAdvocacy.org is hosted on a server owned by DDC. Though DDC conceals the hosting of its other websites using a service called DomainsByProxy, ThinkProgress has obtained a list of the domains hosted on DDC servers. A review of this data shows that DDC maintains the grassroots outreach websites for large health insurance companies, but also for big tobacco and Koch Industries:

– phillipmorrisusaactioncenter.org (Altria)
– tobaccoissues.com (Altria)
– kochpac.com (Koch Industries)
– aetnavotes.com (Aetna)
– healthactionnetwork.org (WellPoint)
– humanapartners.com (Humana)
– ahipadvocacy.org (AHIP)

DDC is a firm that promises “high impact” outreach programs to not only influence the grassroots, but “change attitudes for the long term.” As the Washington Post explains, DDC pays over 500 contract workers to “spend much of their day telephoning people around the country and asking them to sign letters to Congress that press for legislation.” The firm helped orchestrate “grassroots” support for President Bush’s push to privatize Social Security, and helped manage online efforts for the right-wing attack group Freedom’s Watch. DDC is headed by B.R. McConnon, a former associate of Jack Abramoff’s lobbying partners, and a former employee of the Koch-funded astroturf organization known as Citizens for a Sound Economy.

Citizens for a Sound Economy — which has also received funds from private health insurers in the past and played a critical astroturf role in killing reform under Clinton — eventually split, with one wing forming Americans for Prosperity in 2003, and another forming FreedomWorks in 2004. Both organizations, which are still funded by the Koch Industries empire, were instrumental in organizing the anti-Obama tea party protests, and have been spreading misinformation and anger at the current health reform effort. Americans for Prosperity’s anti-health reform front group, Patients United, has hosted speakers comparing the House health reform bill to the Holocaust.

Curiously, DDC servers also host anti-health reform letters from the Chamber of Commerce and Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), as well as continual news updates about the reform debate. All three documents are under a subsection titled WellPoint.

Given the stealthy nature of astroturf lobbying firms, it is difficult to discern the extent to which DDC is managing AHIP’s efforts. UnitedHealth, another large insurer, was caught recently using a call center to direct people to a radical tea party anti-health reform protest outside of the offices of Rep. Zach Space (D-OH).

Already, the health insurance industry has flexed its muscle to water down reform. After spending millions on lobbying, advertising, and direct contributions to lawmakers, the Senate Finance Committee made a major concession allowing insurers to reimburse only 65% of medical bills (down from the 76% proposed requirement). And indeed, although AHIP has made grandiose promises of self regulation, many insurers have recently broke promises made by AHIP President Karen Ignagni. On June 16, despite Ignagni’s pledges of commitment, insurance executives from UnitedHealth Group, Assurant, and WellPoint specifically refused to “commit” to ending the controversial practice of rescinding coverage after an applicant files a medical claim.

With DDC’s stealth lobbying assistance, AHIP may well kill the public option too.