Spend enough time observing corporate American power structures and you learn a thing or two about when someone is on the right track toward enacting a decision that will help average consumers and hurt corporate bottom lines.

Whether you’re talking about increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans, trying to increase regulatory authority over the biggest conglomerate polluters, or simply asking corporate health insurance providers to actually fairly administer services to those paying for them and those providing the healthcare, the same fear mongering and obfuscation tactics will be employed to ensure that the status quo they have long enjoyed remains the way things are.

The first sign is the buzzing of PR campaigns kicking into action, a surefire indicator that you’ve gotten close to the hornets’ nest. Every statement made by those looking for a fairer outcome for doctors and patients must have a counter; a carefully cherry picked example to show how the current structure is working as intended here, an anecdote to show that all evidence to the contrary is simply a misunderstanding, there.

“There are no dentist or doctor shortages in Rhode Island, of course not. It is you, simple Rhode Island resident, who is mistaken,” buzzes the hive. “Just because either professional can get paid significantly more in any neighboring state due to more favorable insurance reimbursement rates doesn’t mean something is wrong with the way we do things here.”

Next comes the threat barely disguised as altruism.

“Sure, you can make us allocate more money from patient premiums to actually go to paying doctors and dentists and providing services to patients, but if we did that, we’ll have to jack those rates way up to the stratosphere to compensate. Now wouldn’t that be a shame? After all, we care about keeping costs low for ratepayers.”

They are tactics that have, regrettably, worked for decades to convince the American people that poor corporate health insurance companies are being victimized by greedy medical professionals — you know, like dentists, who spend years training in a very specialized field to help your teeth not rot out from within your head after a lifetime of drinking soda and eating gummy worms.

While numbers invariably get fudged whenever two sides in a lobbying debate get fired up — please don’t use numbers from outside Rhode Island in your debate materials regarding how much money is wasted on corporate bonuses and salaries, RI Dental Association, you have the moral high ground in this case without resorting to those underhanded tactics — the facts in this case are black and white.

Corporate insurance companies have had a fun ride in Rhode Island taking advantage of care providers and hiding that dirty fact with lower rates for patients. But lower rates do no good if someone can’t reliably find a doctor or a dentist. Ensuring that more money from premiums goes towards paying dentists and doctors can result in increasing the number of professionals willing to stay and work in Rhode Island, which is better for consumers than saving $5-10 a month on a useless premium.

At the very least, legislators should mandate a percentage of money from premiums that must go towards administering patient care, so that we don’t let the insurance companies — profit-driven corporations beholden to shareholders above all — set their own definition and mathematics for what “caring about the patient” means.

History, and common sense, shows us that is far from their primary concern.