When Sen. Joe Lieberman announced last month on the TV program "Face the Nation" that the House-passed version of health care reform would be dead on arrival in the Senate, what he didn't say was that the predicted demise had been bought and paid for by the health care industry.
According to the watchdog group Common Cause, major health care interests have spent $1.4 million per day so far in 2009 lobbying Congress. Many of these influence peddlers are former government staff members and retired members of Congress.
The Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics, reports that health care lobbying exceeded $422 million during the first nine months of this year.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, has pocketed almost $2 million from the health industry and another $1 million from the insurance industry over his career.
Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has taken in even more than that amount from these lobby groups. Other Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee pulling in large donations from companies like Eli Lilly, Pifzer, Blue Cross & Blue Shield, and Merck & Co., include Sens. Pat Roberts of Kansas, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, and John Cornyn of Texas.
Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Jon Kyl of Arizona are invested in pharmaceutical companies like Amgen, Merck & Co. and Pfizer. The list goes on.
A number of Democrats, too, will be looking out for the interests of pharmaceutical and medical insurance companies when the Senate version of the health care bill opens for debate.
Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska said in May that inclusion of a public option plan would be a "deal breaker." In that statement, he was echoing the interests of the health care industry. They don't want a public health plan as part of any reform package.
Nelson, a former CEO of a large insurance company, has received more than $2 million from insurance and drug companies in his three campaigns for federal office.
Arkansas Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln, another member of the Senate Finance Committee, has been the recipient of more than $300,000 from the health industry since January.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia reported sizeable capital gains last year from the sale of his wife's shares in Athenahealth Inc., a business services company that helps medical providers with billing and clinical operations.
Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa jointly owns with his wife shares of Amgen, Genentech Inc., and Johnson & Johnson.
Jackie Dodd, wife of Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, is a board member of several pharmaceutical companies, including Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., and Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals. She netted more than a quarter of a million dollars in 2008 in these positions.
The wife of Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, whose state is home to a number of large insurance and pharmaceutical companies, also benefited from industry money. Hadassah Lieberman has pocketed thousands of dollars as a "senior counselor" for the lobbying firm of Hill & Knowlton while representing companies in the pharmaceutical and insurance sectors.
Susan Bayh, wife of Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, has been paid millions of dollars for serving on the board of directors for Wellpoint, the parent company of Blue Cross Blue Shield.
It's a stretch to believe that these women would have these positions if they didn't have spousal connections to important senators.
The public disclosure of which U.S. senators receive the largest corporate donations is why backers of health care reform are worried. And they should be. Lawmakers who are benefiting from large campaign contributions from the health industry are not going to turn and bite the hand that has been feeding them. If real health care reform dies in the Senate, we won't need to look very far to find the legislators who killed it — and we'll know why they did it.
Jim Coogan of Sandwich is a retired teacher. His column runs every other Tuesday. Reach him at P.O. Box 1181, East Dennis, MA, 02641, or e-mail him at coogan206@gis.net.
Source:capecodonline.com/
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