Dems Who Voted Against Public Option : $19 Million in Healthcare Bucks

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGEMax Baucus Health Care Lobbyist Complex

Democrats who voted against public option
Got $19 million from healthcare firms

...compared to the profits the insurance industry will make if a public option is defeated... They got a great deal for that 19 million.

By Muriel Kane / September 30, 2009

Five Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee who voted on Tuesday to shoot down a proposed public option for the health care reform bill -- a measure which polls show is favored by 81% of Democrats -- are coming under close scrutiny for their ties to the health care industry.

According to Intershame.com -- a site which aims to draw attention to misbehavior -- those five senators have collectively been the recipients of over $19 million in donations from health care, pharmaceutical, and health insurance companies over the course of their Congressional careers.

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) alone accounts for nearly $8 million of the total. In addition, five of his former staff members -- including two former chiefs of staff -- are now lobbyists representing organizations with a strong interest in the health care bill.

Joan Walsh of Salon took Baucus to task for his vote, writing, "So let's get this straight: Baucus admits the public option would 'hold insurance companies' feet to the fire,' but he voted against it? Is there any clearer evidence that Baucus is in the pocket of the health insurance industry?"

Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) comes in second on the Intershame list, with about $4 million in health industry donations, and Kent Conrad (D-ND) is third at around $3 million. Like Baucus, both Lincoln and Conrad have former chiefs of staff who are now health industry lobbyists.

Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com did some number-crunching last June which revealed the extent to which health insurance donations can influence Congressional voting. "Lobbying contributions appear to have the largest marginal impact on middle-of-the-road Democrats," Silver wrote. "Liberal Democrats are likely to hold firm to the public option unless they receive a lot of remuneration from health care PACs. Conservative Democrats may not support the public option in the first place for ideological reasons, although money can certainly push them more firmly against it. But the impact on mainline Democrats appears to be quite large."

Calls are already appearing at places like the liberal message board Democratic Underground for progressives to sponsor primary challenges to all three senators.

Bill Nelson (D-FL) at $2.5 million and Tom Carper (D-DE) at $1.5 million fill out the Intershame list. Both voted in favor of the weaker Schumer version of a public option, which would not include robust measure to control costs, but against the stronger version proposed by Sen. Jay Rockefeller. Carper has also been a prominent supporter of a "trigger," which would activate a public option only "if there is no meaningful competition after a couple of years."

"If money is the reason these five Democrats rejected the public option," Intershame concludes, "then it only took a little over 19 million dollars over 20 years to buy the five votes the health insurance industry needed to kill any meaningful reform to their industry. 19 million dollars is nothing compared to the profits the insurance industry will make if a public option is defeated. They got a great deal for that 19 million. The American people? Not so much.

Source / The Raw Story

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Hey Blue Dogs : Don't Make Me Vote Third Party!

Listen up Democrats! If you don't have or can't find enough backbone to give the American people substantial health care reform that contains a public health insurance option, then don't even bother asking for my support.

By Ted McLaughlin / The Rag Blog / September 9, 2009

I am a left-winger. I usually vote for the candidates on the Democratic ticket, but I don't have to. Along with millions of others, I have voted for third-parties in the past and I'm not afraid to do so again. When the real liberals and other left-wingers vote for third-party candidates, the Democrats do not win.

Once again, it looks like the Democrats are taking the left for granted. The Blue Dogs and others seem to think the left will have to support the Dems no matter what they do or fail to do. Those who believe this are badly mistaken.

I will be blunt. I have been disappointed with the Democrats since they regained power. But there is one issue that will determine how I vote in 2010 and 2012 -- health care. It should be obvious to anyone that our health care system is badly broken. If the Democrats don't pass real reform with the numerical advantage they currently hold, I cannot see any reason why I should continue to support them with my money, my blog and my vote (and I certainly won't participate in any GOTV effort).

And it looks like they are fast going to wuss out on real health care reform -- opting instead to enrich the insurance companies at the expense of the American people. Take the Baucus bill for example. This really bad bill would not have a public option, would require everyone to purchase private insurance, and would fine those who don't purchase private insurance.

Baucus says he will help those who can't afford health insurance by giving tax credits. I have to ask, how will getting a tax credit help the poor who don't pay taxes? And how will fining them help them to buy insurance or get out of poverty? The only real answer for these people is a cheap public option for health insurance.

Since my retirement a couple of months ago, I have joined the ranks of the poor (and with my age and the poor job market, I see little chance to change that anytime soon). I make slightly less that $1600 a month. That will take care of my rent and bills since I don't owe a lot, but how am I going to buy private health care insurance (especially with a pre-existing condition like diabetes)?

At current rates, private health insurance will cost me over half of my monthly income (if I can even get it at all). Then how am I going to pay rent, bills and eat? And don't try to tell me a "co-op" will drive down insurance costs with competition. I'm not stupid. I've seen how competition did nothing but allow prices to rise for electricity, car and home insurance, and many other things (especially if you are mandated by the government to purchase those things).

Listen up Democrats! If you don't have or can't find enough backbone to give the American people substantial health care reform that contains a public health insurance option, then don't even bother asking for my support. Real health care reform is your last chance to earn my support for the future (and I believe millions of others think the same).

I have never voted for a Republican (and never will), but I (and many others) are not afraid to vote for a third party. When we did it in the past, the Democrats fell from power. Don't force us to do it again!

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Guns of August : Why Obama's Ratings Are Falling

Obama: sweating out ratings drop? Photo from Google Images.

Obama’s approval rating tumbles

President Obama’s job approval rating is at the lowest point of his presidency -- a drop largely caused by erosion in support among the political independents who gave him an electoral landslide, a new poll suggests.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey results released yesterday show his overall approval number at 53 percent, down from 76 percent in early February, just after he took office.

The increasingly bitter partisanship appears to be taking a toll on the president -- boston.com / September 2, 2009

Corporate Dems blocking serious reform
By Roger Baker / The Rag Blog / September 2, 2009

See 'The guns of August...' by Robert Reich, Below.

My comment: The corporate Democrats in Congress are blocking the progress that Obama seeks. So long as Obama is unable to organize his populist and independent base to pressure them and so long as the economy appears to be recovering, our corrupted political system will probably not get behind deep reform.

Maybe the system has to crash and hit bottom (as I think it will due to long term trends) before an alarmed general population (the independents seem to be a weather vane here) will want or accept strong leadership like an FDR. When things get really bad, politics by its nature tends to favor stronger, more radical medicine on both right and left.

Also, here is Robert Reich's take:

Robert Reich. Photo by Richard Morgenstein.

The guns of August and why the Republican right was so adept at using them on health care

By Robert Reich / August 31, 2009

What we learned in August is something we've long known but keep forgetting: The most important difference between America's Democratic left and Republican right is that the left has ideas and the right has discipline. Obama and progressive supporters of health care were outmaneuvered in August -- not because the right had any better idea for solving the health care mess but because the right's attack on the Democrats' idea was far more disciplined than was the Democrats' ability to sell it.

I say the Democrats' "idea" but in fact there was no single idea. Obama never sent any detailed plan to Congress. Meanwhile, congressional Dems were so creative and undisciplined before the August recess they came up with a kaleidoscope of health-care plans. The resulting incoherence served as an open invitation to the Republican right to focus with great precision on convincing the public of their own demonic version of what the Democrats were up to -- that it would take away their Medicare, require "death panels," raise their taxes, and lead to a government takeover of medicine, and so on.

The Obama White House -- a veritable idea factory brimming with ingenuity -- thereafter proved unable to come up with a single, convincing narrative to counteract this right-wing hokum. Whatever discipline Obama had mustered during the campaign somehow disappeared.

This is just the latest chapter of a long saga.

Over the last twenty years, as progressives have gushed new ideas, the right has became ever more organized and mobilized in resistance -- capable of executing increasingly consistent and focused attacks, moving in ever more perfect lockstep, imposing an exact discipline often extending even to the phrases and words used repeatedly by Hate Radio, Fox News, and the oped pages of The Wall Street Journal ("death tax," "weapons of mass destruction," "government takeover of health care").

I saw it in 1993 and 1994 as the Clinton health care plan -- as creatively and wildly convoluted as any policy proposal before or since -- was defeated both by a Democratic majority in congress incapable of coming together around any single bill and a Republican right dedicated to Clinton's destruction. Newt Gingrich's subsequent "contract with America" recaptured Congress for the Republicans not because it contained a single new idea but because Republicans unflinchingly rallied around it while Democrats flailed.

You want to know why the left has ideas and the right has discipline? Because people who like ideas and dislike authority tend to identify with the Democratic left, while people who feel threatened by new ideas and more comfortable in a disciplined and ordered world tend to identify with the Republican right.

Democrats and progressives let a thousand flowers bloom. Republicans and the right issue directives. This has been the yin and yang of American politics and culture. But it means that the Democratic left's new ideas often fall victim to its own notorious lack of organization and to the right's highly-organized fear mongering.

I suppose I'm as guilty as anyone. A few weeks ago I casually mentioned in a web conversation on Politico's web page that if supporters of universal health care and a "public option" felt their voices were not being heard in our nation's capital they should march on Washington. A few moments later, when someone wrote in asking when, I glanced at a calendar and in a burst of unreflective enthusiasm offered September 13. I didn't check with anyone, didn't strategize with progressive groups that have been working on health care for years, barely checked in with myself.

I was deluged with emails. Many people said they were planning to march. Someone put up a web page, another a Facebook page, a member of Congress announced his support. But most people said they couldn't manage September 13. It was too soon. It conflicted with other events. It followed too closely behind a right-wing march against health care reform already scheduled for September 12. It was a day AFL leaders were out of town, so couldn't lend their support. Many who emailed me wanted another day -- September 20, or the 27th, or early October. Others said they'd rather march on their state capital, in order that local media cover it.

When I finally checked in with the heads of several progressive groups and unions in Washington -- all with big mailing lists and the resources to organize a big march -- they said they were already planning a march, for October. But they still haven't given me a date. (I will pass it on as soon as I hear.)

August is coming to a close, and congressional recess is about over. History is not destiny, and Democrats and progressives can yet enact meaningful health care reform -- with a public option. But to do so, we'll need to be far more disciplined about it. All of us, from Obama on down.

[Robert B. Reich has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He also served on President-Elect Obama's transition advisory board. His latest book, Supercapitalism, is now out in paperback.]

Source / Robert Reich's Blog

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