By Cliff Montgomery – Sept. 13th, 2009
Addison (Joe) Wilson made something of a fool out of himself Wednesday night, during President Barack Obama’s speech to Congress discussing the dire need for health care reform.
Obama stated that illegal immigrants will not qualify for aid from the proposed health care plans. Wilson of course screamed, “You lie!”
It now hardly needs to be pointed out that the only liar that night was Mr. Wilson.
Shortly after Obama’s speech, MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan discussed the outburst with Politifact’s Bill Adair, to provide a proper fact-check of Wednesday’s proceedings.
Ratigan immediately asked Adair to check the truth or falsehood of Wilson’s scream, noting that it is “the obvious [item] to fact check.”
Adair, who stated that he never before “fact-checked a heckler,” lost no time flatly declaring Wilson’s assertion as “false”:
Obama is right. When you look at the bill, it does go to some lengths to make sure that illegal immigrants do not get the credits for the health care exchange that would allow them to get free care. They’d have to pay for it, like everybody else. False for Wilson.
So who is ‘Wrong Way Joe’? And exactly who gives this man the contributions he needs to remain in power?
Since 2001, Wilson has been a representative of South Carolina’s 2nd congressional district.
GovTrack, a non-partisan website which provides essential information on all members of Congress, rates Wilson as “a far-right Republican according to GovTrack’s own analysis of bill sponsorship.”
Many of Wilson’s biggest contributors are members of the health care community. But that doesn’t necessarily mean their bribes–ahem, ‘generous contributions’–are for your benefit.
Take for instance the support Wilson enjoys from the good people of the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association.
“Through its 45 local chapters, the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association provides health care coverage to more than 80 million people,” states a detailed report from OpenSecrets, a website which is published by The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). The CRP is “the nation’s premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy,” according to CRP’s mission statement.
“Blue Cross/Blue Shield also has a contract with the federal government to review and process Medicare claims,” adds OpenSecrets’ report on the organization.
So why is Blue Cross/Blue Shield donating to Wilson? Perhaps it is the fact that the organization is “lobbying Congress to make it harder for the government to penalize companies if their employees defraud the Medicare program and process false claims,” according to the CRP website.
And that’s something of a problem for the people at Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
“Local Blue Cross chapters have paid about $340 million to the federal government to settle Medicare fraud charges since 1993,” states OpenSecrets.
And then there is the American Hospital Association (AHA).
The AHA “represents 37,000 individual members at more than 5,000 hospitals and health care systems,” declares OpenSecrets.
“The association also supports tort reform that would limit medical malpractice lawsuits,” adds the website.
The American Spark here notes that Wilson appears to have a lot of support from those who wish for a particular legal reform–specifically, a “reform” which would greatly limit legal responsibilities for the most powerful health care individuals and groups.
This of course is little more than the same distorted and disproven idea which created the current mess in America’s stock market. Lack of legal oversight and responsibility did not work for Wall Street – and it won’t work for our national health care system.
Rep. Wilson officially has 538 contributions of $200 or more – in all, declared contributions total $336,707. These numbers are for the current (2009-2010) election cycle, and are based on information from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), made available on August 9th, 2009. They are the most current FEC numbers regarding Wilson posted on the OpenSecrets website.
Below the American Spark provides readers with a list of Rep. Wilson’s 21 top contributors, (thanks to The Center for Responsive Politics for the list). We review Rep. Wilson’s contributors by
- Rank of Contributor
- Donation Total
- Individual Donation Total
- PAC Donation Total
1 American Hospital Assn –
· $7,000
· $0
· $7,000
2 American Speech-Language-Hearing Assn –
· $6,000
· $0
· $6,000
3 Credit Union National Assn –
· $5,000
· $0
· $5,000
4 Every Republican is Crucial PAC –
· $5,000
· $0
· $5,000
5 Fluor Corp –
· $5,000
· $0
· $5,000
6 Freedom Project –
· $5,000
· $0
· $5,000
7 National Rural Electric Cooperative Assn –
· $5,000
· $0
· $5,000
8 United Parcel Service –
· $4,999
· $0
· $4,999
9 Ferguson For Congress –
· $4,000
· $0
· $4,000
10 Willoughby & Hoefer –
· $4,000
· $4,000
· $0
11 Blue Cross/Blue Shield –
· $3,250
· $3,250
· $0
12 Ameresco Inc –
· $3,000
· $3,000
· $0
13 Honeywell International –
· $3,000
· $0
· $3,000
14 Carecore International –
· $2,750
· $2,750
· $0
15 American Society of Anesthesiologists –
· $2,500
· $0
· $2,500
16 AstraZeneca PLC –
· $2,500
· $0
· $2,500
17 Kinghorn, Hilbert & Assoc –
· $2,500
· $2,500
· $0
18 National Beer Wholesalers Assn –
· $2,500
· $0
· $2,500
19 OSI Restaurant Partners –
· $2,500
· $0
· $2,500
20 Silver Crescent –
· $2,400
· $2,400
· $0
21 Thermal Engr Corp –
· $2,400
· $2,400
· $0
“The organizations themselves [on this list] did not donate,” reminds OpenSecrets.
“Rather the money came from the organization’s PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals’ immediate families,” stated the website.
“Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates,” added OpenSecrets.
