Study Reveals Private Health Industry Uses Big Tobacco Tactics Against Universal Health Care

TL/DR –

The private health industry lobby group “Partnership for America’s Health Care Future” (PAHCF) has been likened to Big Tobacco and other unhealthy commodity industry groups for their strategies in portraying universal health care policies as negative in the US, a study reveals. The study analyzed 1675 paid advertisements run by PAHCF across Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram from 2018-2021, which received between 32.6 million and 40.7 million views. The authors likened the campaign’s communication strategies to those of “unhealthy commodity industries”, inducing doubt, fear, and uncertainty about policy reforms, and criticized Meta for offering these industries opportunities to engage in such tactics while benefiting from ad revenue, particularly in light of Meta’s rollback of its fact-checking policies.

Private Health Lobby Group Uses Big Tobacco Tactics to Oppose Universal Health Care

A study in the open-access journal PLOS Global Public Health suggests that the private health industry lobby group “Partnership for America’s Health Care Future” (PAHCF) employs strategies reminiscent of Big Tobacco to cast a negative light on universal health care (UHC) policies in the US. These findings were published on July 16, 2025, following research by Kendra Chow from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and her colleagues. [source]

As the only high-income country without universal health coverage, the US has about 31.6 million uninsured citizens. Despite leading in health expenditure, the US healthcare system ranks last among its peers in terms of access, efficiency, equity, and outcomes. This backdrop spurred PAHCF’s 2019 campaign across Meta platforms to oppose UHC policies, which would adversely affect private profit-driven healthcare companies.

The researchers analyzed 1675 paid ads and related metadata shown to Meta users from May 2018 until September 2021. The campaign, viewed by between 32.6 to 40.7 million Meta users, had five main themes warning Americans of UHC policies’ potential harm. These themes included the negative impacts of UHC on US healthcare, individual choice infringements, misrepresentation of legislative intent, promoting partnerships, and advocating for system fixes. The ads also targeted different audience segments with specific visual representations.

The study highlighted PAHCF’s communication strategies’ similarity to unhealthy commodity industries (like tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food), which foster doubt, fear, and uncertainty towards policy reforms. While Meta doesn’t publicly provide full ad data, the authors emphasized the necessity of scrutinizing how industries use social media to shield profits and potentially harm public health.

As the new US budget bill threatens to strip nearly 12 million Americans of healthcare access, it’s crucial to monitor campaigns like PAHCF’s that leverage Meta’s ad tools to sway public opinion and voting behaviors, especially regarding policy reforms like Medicaid. The team also noted that Meta’s rollback of its US fact-checking policies, coupled with a lack of transparency around political ad targeting, offers health-harming industries ample opportunities to prioritize profits over public health.

Journal reference:

Chow, K., et al. (2025). Generating opposition to universal health care policies in the United States: An analysis of private health industry advertising on Meta platforms. PLOS Global Public Health. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0003244.

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