photo: Megandavid/ BY-NC-SA

By: Emily Beaver

Forget town hall. The battle over health care reform is now happening on Facebook.

Last week, a group backed by the health insurance industry got some bad press when the Business Insider reported that the group was offering Facebook gamers "virtual cash" to send e-mails to their Congressional representatives opposing health care reform.

Get Health Reform Right, a group made up associations that support the health insurance industry, was offering "virtual currency" people can use to play Facebook games like Mafia Wars and FarmVille. But to get the money, players had to fill out a survey about health care reform. Completing the survey generated an automatic e-mail, which was sent to the player's Congressional representative, saying "I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will only create more problems, not solve the ones we have."

Critics say this amounts to virtual "astroturfing," a nickname for creating political support artificially. Supporters of health care reform have fired back, placing ads of Facebook saying health insurers are bribing gamers to claim they oppose health reform.

The health insurance industry groups who belong to Get Health Reform Right have denied that they were involved with these offers. But the health insurance industry, which could lose money if our health care system changes, has been one of the biggest opponents of health reform.

As the Senate struggles to come up with a health care reform bill that 60 senators will vote for, some skeptics say health care reform won't happen. But the health insurance industry seems to be taking the possibility of reform serious enough to trick Facebook games into sending pre-written e-mails opposing reform. And some members of Congress are saying the form e-mails are proof their constituents don't want health reform to happen.

"Astroturfing" has been around longer than Facebook, but using Facebook games to create a false sense of support for a political cause is scary. On Facebook, most of us don't think twice before clicking on a new survey, application, or even a third-party offer, which was what Get Health Reform Right used to lure gamers to fill out the surveys. The worst part of virtual astroturfing isn't that it creates a false sense of political support -- it's that e-mails from constituents who are genuinely concerned about the issue may get lost in the spam that virtual astroturfing creates.

Previously:

• Ten Health Care Terms You Need to Know
• Ten More Health Care Terms You Need to Know
• Can't Spare a Dime for Health Care