Ever notice how the mainstream press rarely gets around to connecting banner-carrying legislators to their campaign contributors? That information certainly needs exposure about Sen. Max Baucus (D-MN), who is playing a leading role in forging a health care policy for (against?) President Obama, and his bi-partisan Finance Committee colleague Charles Grassley.
Baucus began by going nose-to-nose against fellow Democrat Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, who was championing a public plan to compete with the myriad private health care insurers through his Health, Education, Labor & Pensions committee. Baucus, Finance Committee chair, instead started out suggesting such a strategy only if only if private insurance companies had not made meaningful, affordable coverage available to all Americans within several years. Fighting cancer, however, Kennedy has receded from the stage.
Ever notice how the mainstream press rarely gets around to connecting banner-carrying legislators to their campaign contributors?
That information certainly needs to be publicized about Sen. Max Baucus (D-MN), who is playing a leading role in forging a health care policy for President Obama. Baucus began by going nose-to-nose against fellow Democrat Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, who was leading the charge for a public plan to compete with the myriad private health care insurers.
Major media dwell on the Senate debate, but they seldom dwell on the private-interest supporters on which representatives are fiscally dependent for their careers. Baucus has received more than $2 million from health care lobbies in the past seven years according to MAPLight.org, a Web site that tracks Money And Politics. Kennedy does not receive contributions from those industries at anything like those levels; neither does his committee colleague, Sen. Chris Dodd, who is championing the public option in his stead.
Moreover, The Nation's Ari Berman this week blogged that "the Billings Gazette found that Baucus raises $1,500 a day from the medical-industrial complex, more than any other Democratic senator. 'Baucus,' the Gazette reported, 'insists that this cascade of money is not unduly influencing his work.' "
In fact, Baucus's long-term sponsors more closely resemble those of his Republican cohort on the Finance Committee, Charles Grassley of Iowa. He collected $1.5 million from the insurance/health insurance, health professionals, pharmaceuticals, health services/HMOs, and hospitals and nursing homes in the same time period.
Baucus has been hedging his stand, fully aware that his voting constituency back home has been hammering him to make not only universal, affordable but single-payer health care his goal. At town hall meetings, he or his representatives have been warning that if they ask for single-payer, they may get nothing — which would suit his top campaign funders.
It's time for voters and constituents across the country, including Montana, Nebraska and Iowa, to rise up against not only the stranglehold profiteering corporations have on our health care system, but the whole political system that forces candidates to be financial dependents of the rich and corporations to even aspire to being "public servants," screwing taxpayers who pay their salaries to satisfy their campaign funding sources in anticipation to their next campaign - which will inevitably cost more than they will make in the job they win.