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

By Muriel Kane
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 -- 12:38 pm
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healthcare Democrats who voted against public option got $19 million from healthcare firmsFive 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.

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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."

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Story comments are below...
  • rexozone
    Why wouldn't this immediately invalidate their vote allowing the vote to proceed without their "input." Now that would be fair and just.
  • vladimir23
    ikh.....you should conduct some research of your own. it's called a public OPTION. are you familiar with the definition of option? if you dont want it, you dont have to use it. go watch some more fox news. it seems like that's where you get your 'facts'.
  • SPECOPS
    This should open yours to the fact that these Dems. are bought and paided for by big pharma.and the insurance lobby.If the want to act like Repub. i say vote the out of office so that they can go to work for a lobbing firm.

    Msgt.Moore 18D.
  • Name
    And this is mostly irrelevant because IT IS LEGAL... THATS THE PROBLEM...

    Baucus is a traitor to his constituents and the country
  • katiebegood
    And these 5 members represent 2.3% of Americans. There's something really wrong with our system whereby Senators from states that have a smaller population than Los Angeles can make these kind of decisions for all Americans. It's time to change our legislative system to be more representative of "we the people".
  • Nonnie
    It's time to ban the lobbyists! Congress is not working for the people!
  • danielthorne
    The senators who voted for big business and not for the people should be brought out and flooged for thier abuse of power. The people in government should get no better health care than the least insured of the people they are representing. If being in the government means just linning your pockets then it is not for the people. This puts capitalism to shame
  • thepoliticalcat
    Why are these Blue Running Dogs, whose constituents total less than ten per cent of the American People, in charge of deciding what happens to the other NINETY PER CENT!!! Montana probably has more sheep and cows than people! Let Max Baucus be the committee chair of veterinary services, for god's sake! He doesn't have enough human constituents to decide on the fate of humans! I would say his FELLOW-humans, except he can't possibly be one of us with this attitude to the 45,000 Americans who die each year due to lack of access to health care. Scum-sucking swine that he is.
  • AH, COME ON. this does not really surprise any one does it ? these [yellow dogs] are saboteurs of society. they are spineless leeches, just like the rest of them. we exist under a one party system. and that system is called fascism. [[[they select so we may elect]]].
  • tacticalgrace
    Gosh, isn't that called bribery these days?
  • These five blue DOGS should not get money from the National Democratic committee as they are funded by their true owners the insurers. In fact if they are given funding I will stop sending money to support the Democrats. These 5 DOGS are not democrats they are planted in our party by the republicans so that they will vote against anything that would stop the rape of the American poor and middle class.And as for Mr Obama he badly needs to work on growing a set! He was elected to do a job and if he doesn't take the reins and get busy I won't ever vote for him again.
    What the hell is he doing traipsing around with Oprah for Chicago when the people who voted for him need health care? If there is no public option to provide competition don't even bother. I have never seen a fair monopoly. And please stop comparing yourself to Kennedy or Lincoln, they would have done something! You Mr. Obama are apparently a light weight.
  • donofcali
    I'm still registered as a Democrat. But I stopped giving money to the National Democratic party/committee a few years ago because they give the money to these traitors called blue dogs.

    Now when those letters come to me asking for money, they go directly into the garbage without being opened.
  • texasaggie
    It's much better to use the envelope (postage paid) to send a letter of your own explaining the details of why you aren't contributing and stating the conditions under which they can expect to receive contributions from you in the future. I doubt it will do much good, at least there have been no results from my doing it, but it feels a lot better when you stick it to them.
  • tvfreezone
    They sold us out for peanuts. Make such contributions illegal! Baucus and his ilk probably go behind closed doors and giggle and snicker about their rancid behaviour. "I guess we're gonna be called a lot of names now. Screw 'em. We need to get elected."
  • donofcali
    That's because they're corrupt. They vote for whoever pays them the most, and that sure isn't the American citizen.
  • lkh
    Be happy that someone is trying to uphold the small thread of good health care we have left. If the make health care "public" and run by the government it will be crappy. Yes it cost money, but I would rather pay for good health care, then get bad health care for free. Do some research about other Countries around the world that have a public health care system. If you are too old and dont matter they wont treat you. If you are too usless to society they dont care. Just because it "sounds good" doenst mean it is. If they make a reform they should make some healthcare public and others private, so that those of us who are willing to pay for quality will still get it. I dont want to suffer in the long run because the government can make a system that fails every where around the world sound good here. Just a fun fact, the USA currently has the highest cancer survival rate, because of the PRIVATE health system. In other countries they just let people with cancer die because there is no point in trying to save them. Is that what you want for our futures.
  • ikh; you are parroting the ins. corp. big pharma. talking points. make sure your check is in the mail.
  • texasaggie
    The string theory is based on there being parallel universes. So far there hasn't been a lot of physical evidence in favor of the string theory, but ikh's post is good evidence that there are alternate universes and that some people who live in them can also contact the one we live in.
  • amdc
    So "If you are too useless to society they don't care", isn't that what the current health care plans do to poor people?
    Also if they give public health care it's not like they're planning on then completely removing all other health care plans.
    Also out of curiosity have you done research on health care (just fox news, Glenn Beck, and Rush limbaugh don't count).
  • gene grannan
    Its a sad day 5 Demopublicans sell their votes like prostitutes removing an opportunity to finally show that Democrats have a Spine and they stand for the common good for all Americans by supporting the public option. Sad Sad Sad.
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