By Cliff Montgomery – Dec. 11th, 2009
Recently have the feeling you’ve been cheated?
No doubt that notion has been buzzing about your mind the last few days, if you’re among the majority of Americans who demand some kind of public option as the centerpiece of real U.S. health care reform.
Perhaps you voted for Barack Obama to be president, actually believing his campaign promises to provide the health care reform America needs. You may have even voted Democrats into U.S. House and Senate seats, hoping they would fulfill their promise to actually provide a public option for all Americans who desperately need it.
You know that for many in this country, the reform of America’s health care system literally is an issue of life and death. Thus you know the public option is not a matter for compromise. It is not a bit of ordinary, “feel-good” legislation. It is not meant as a mere help to needy individuals.
A public option turns every American’s natural right to life into a definite, cold hard fact. Without it, the so-called “right to life” enshrined in the Declaration of Independence is nothing more than a very bad joke.
And then you heard late Tuesday that your so-called “representatives” in the Senate have planned to sell your right to life down the river.
The American Spark wishes to let you know your “representatives’ ” integrity was purchased outright by U.S. insurers, health providers and pharmaceutical companies.
These special interests have bought America’s would-be reformers, from Barack Obama to your senator. It’s only right you know just how much the president and U.S. senators have accepted to turn their backs on you.
Even before Congressional committees circulated their initial health care proposals, insurers, health providers and pharmaceutical companies plotted and planned, buying up politicians to shape the outcome.
Beginning with the 2008 election cycle, America’s private health care sector has bought more Democrats than Republicans, states the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a leading government watchdog group. Democrats in 2006 took control of Congress, placed in power by a majority of Americans who demanded real change in such matters as our broken health care system.
Barack Obama made health care reform a centerpiece of his successful bid for the presidency in 2008. But he also quietly raked in $18.8 million from U.S. drug companies, insurers and health providers during the 2008 election cycle–easily the most among all presidential hopefuls.
Below, the American Spark provides a list revealing the 10 most shameless senators in the health care government buyout. The data are taken from a more comprehensive list created by CRP, printed on its website. That list reveals the take which every member of Congress has received from health care industries.
“The data includes contributions from individuals and political action committees to lawmakers’ campaign committees and leadership PACs for the period of 1989 through 2009,” states CRP.
“Health insurance totals are a combination of contributions from health and accident insurers, HMOs and other health services,” adds CRP.
“But the overall health sector totals include only HMOs and health services,” the center continues.
Name: McCain, John
State: R-AZ
Health Sector: $9,027,044
Health Insurance: $736,884
Pharma: $902,915
Name: Kerry, John
State: D-MA
Health Sector: $8,344,060
Health Insurance: $687,434
Pharma: $887,043
Name: Baucus, Max
State: D-MT
Health Sector: $3,902,881
Health Insurance: $675,349
Pharma: $1,099,605
Name: Hatch, Orrin
State: R-UT
Health Sector: $3,051,635
Health Insurance: $393,380
Pharma: $1,613,113
Name: Harkin, Tom
State: D-IA
Health Sector: $2,935,478
Health Insurance: $168,556
Pharma: $772,532
Name: Brown, Sherrod
State: D-OH
Health Sector: $2,762,327
Health Insurance: $75,100
Pharma: $307,654
Name: Grassley, Chuck
State: R-IA
Health Sector: $2,722,746
Health Insurance: $493,149
Pharma: $617,280
Name: Burr, Richard
State: R-NC
Health Sector: $2,592,044
Health Insurance: $280,586
Pharma: $975,247
Name: Alexander, Lamar
State: R-TN
Health Sector: $2,448,908
Health Insurance: $195,150
Pharma: $304,912
Name: Kyl, Jon
State: R-AZ
Health Sector: $2,339,968
Health Insurance: $360,968
Pharma: $452,635
