As chair of the Energy & Commerce Health subcommittee (part of the Rules and Budget cluster of committees), Anna Eshoo sets the agenda for their meetings. As recently as yesterday, Eshoo had claimed that she intended to invite legislators who had introduced Medicare-For-All bills to come and discuss the finer points of their proposals. Today, she walked that back claiming her committee needed to prioritize “shoring up Obamacare and crafting sweeping drug price reforms” and that Medicare-For-All hearings would happen later, if at all; “an outcome she suggested was unlikely”. Given that pharmaceutical PACs are her single largest source of campaign contributions, I have virtually NO confidence in her intentions to meaningfully reform drug prices.
The most favorable interpretation of the facts I can think of is that she genuinely did want to hold hearings on this extremely popular issue (just like Nancy Pelosi promised) but that once Eshoo publicly announced this intention some pharmaceutical lobbyists showed up to her office and reminded her of the plan to prevent Medicare-For-All from becoming part of the Democratic party’s national platform in 2020. And I do think Anna Eshoo’s record is good enough to give her a little benefit-of-the-doubt; she’s got a rather high score on ProgressivePunch and has introduced seemingly-good legislation on important issues like Net Neutrality and protecting against public health crises.
But even if you agree that Eshoo has a good record overall, I urge you not to suffer this quietly. Eshoo’s decision not to hold Medicare-For-All hearings might strike some of you as nothing more than a mild frustration since there might be other opportunities to hold Medicare-For-All hearings but it’s a lot harder to ignore when you recognize that it’s one more snub against progressives among many. My last diary referenced the House committee assignments which saw many influential seats get bestowed upon so-called “progressives” who had only recently joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus and done nothing to demonstrate their commitment to progressive policy besides sign up as a member of the CPC. Control of the DCCC, which fought fiercely in 2018 against the progressive insurgency that brought us AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayana Pressley remains in control of Centrists who probably think everything will be fine if we can just get back to the way things were in 2015.
As to the question of whether or not we should primary Anna Eshoo, I do not have a strong opinion one way or the other. She is in a D+23 district so it’s a very safe seat for Democrats and a primary challenge might pressure her to find time to hold some Medicare-For-All hearings. On the other hand, there are definitely worse Democrats than Eshoo in other deep blue districts that we should prioritize; I’d rather challenge fewer incumbents in 2020 if it means more uncorrupted progressives end up winning seats. Also, I don’t live anywhere near Eshoo’s district (CA-18) and have no idea what her constituents are likely to care about. That said, if I learn Eshoo does pick up a primary challenger that seems more progressive than here, I’ll very likely donate to their campaign on the basis of this snub alone.
Finally, if you’d like to see more support for Medicare-For-All across the board without having to constantly watch for Democrats trying to sabotage progress, consider helping to fund the Pass Medicare For All PAC.
Friday, Jan 18, 2019 · 6:18:26 AM +00:00
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Angry Scientist
Neglected to mention that everything I’ve claimed about Anna Eshoo’s donations is based on her profile on OpenSecrets.org
The $153,450 she got from Pharmaceuticals/Health Products represents roughly 10% of all the funding she raised last election cycle and $139,000 of it came from PACs in that same category.
Overall, roughly 40% of all of her funding came from various types of PACs and roughly 55% of it came from individual donations larger than $200 at a time. To my eye, these numbers do suggest the possibility of a well-meaning Democrat who takes corporate PAC money not necessarily because she is corrupt but perhaps simply because that’s how “the game is played”. I’ve got no problem with people taking that more-charitable interpretation of the facts because Eshoo does seem to have done some good things over the years but Democrats have betrayed my trust too many times for me to just let it slide. If you live in her district and don’t like that she’s done this, let her know.