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Blue Dogs Feast On Healthcare Money,
Support HR 3962

By Billy Wharton

13 November, 2009
Countercurrents.org

Nov. 13, 2009 - If a bill is passed on Capitol Hill, money is sure to have changed hands. There is not much “School House Rock” idealism left in Washington these days. Bills do not become laws through a democratic process of debate, compromise and ratification. Money greases the skids, shapes the end product and determines what is or isn’t debated from the floor. No surprise then that a large money trail has been left in the wake of the House of Representatives approval of HR 3962, The Affordable Healthcare Act for America.

Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical lobby money is everywhere. In May 2009, the lobby racked up a bill of $2.3 million dollars a day. Every member of the House and every House committee with even a tangential relationship to the legislation have received money from this powerful lobby. Three of these representatives are of interest to this article. They are Blue Dogs – conservative Democrats who often cross party lines and vote with Republicans. All told, we can identify 48 House members as Blue Dogs. 26 of them voted in favor of HR 3962, including our three subjects. The question is why these Blue Dogs decided to go with the Democratic majority on an issue that seemed to sharply divide the two parties. In any normal scenario they might be joining their Republican brethren in the “no” camp. Following the money will offer some interesting motives.

Where Abu Ghraib Meets Merck

Patrick Murphy is a military man. He parlayed his status as a Gulf War veteran into a seat in the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania’s 8th District. He then naturally gravitated to the Armed Services Committee of the House which secured for him, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), large-scale campaign contributions from weapons manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin. More controversial is Murphy acceptance of $17,950 in contributions from L-3 Communications during his 2008 re-election bid. L-3 gained negative attention for carrying out interrogations in US military’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

Murphy employed a similar tactic with the issue of healthcare. Campaign contributions led policy. In 2008, he accepted a large $23,599 in contributions from the pharmaceutical maker Merck & Co. That same year, Merck paid a $671 million settlement after admitting to systematically overcharging Medicaid programs and providing perks to doctors in exchange for pushing Merck products to their patients. (Philadelphia Enquirer, 2/08/08) More directly related to healthcare reform is the deal cut between big Pharma, including Merck, and the Obama administration prior to the drafting of the healthcare reform bills. In exchange for White House assistance in blocking any attempts by Congress to use bulk buying to lower costs or to allow cheap drug importation, pharmaceutical makers agreed to some $80 billion in givebacks to government healthcare programs. (Huffington Post, 8/13/09)

Murphy subsequently quickly shed the typical Blue Dog skepticism about inflated entitlement programs, in favor of becoming an outspoken supporter of HR 3962. In an impassioned article published in the liberal Huffington Post, he urged-on fellow Blue Dogs by describing his, “…strong support of this crucial, fiscally responsible and long-overdue legislation.” (Huffington Post, 11/07/09) Creeping suspicions exist about Murphy’s about-face. Sincere desire for reform or dutiful support of a campaign contributor?

We Will Crush You

Jim Cooper is a far more seasoned consumer of healthcare campaign contributions. He has been at it since the 1980s. Operating from a “very safe seat” in Tennessee, Cooper bankrolled his Blue Dog influence into $159,000 from private health insurers and $104,000 from pharmaceutical makers. Unlike Murphy however, he is a bit more skeptical about HR 3962, viewing the creation of legislation as something akin to “writing a term paper for school,” constant revisions. Cooper hopes that debates in the Senate will squeeze out whatever progressive elements remain in the bill thereby moving it ever closer to the weak proposal he authored in 1992.

The 1992 bill brought him into conflict with then First Lady, and fellow healthcare reform author, Hillary Clinton. The two clashed over Cooper’s opposition to the inclusion of employer mandates to provide insurance to any reform proposal. “We will crush you,” replied an enraged First Lady, “You’ll wish you never mentioned this to me.” (NY Times, 02/05/08) Undeterred, Cooper has tried to inject this pro-employer spirit into the most recent round of health care debates. He has remained a reliable spokesman for the industry whose yes vote moved a watered down proposal toward further revision in the Senate.

The Big Kahuna

If there is a king of the jungle among Blue Dog healthcare contribution seekers, his name is Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota. Pomeroy gained fame for the You Tube video in which he referred to then President George W. Bush as a “clown,” yet it his participation on the powerful Ways and Means Committee which has unleashed the campaign contributions. The list of wrecked business patrons is long – AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These funds produced Pomeroy’s yes vote for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act in 2008 that aimed at bailing out these same companies. (Associated Press, 09/29/08)

Healthcare has proved to be a far more lucrative venture for the representative. As HR 3962 wound its way toward the Ways and Means Committee, the CRP reports Pomeroy had already accepted $620,000 from private insurers and $130,000 from the pharmaceutical industry in contributions for his 2008 campaign. Pomeroy provided a sense of who his constituency was while commenting on the bill after delivering his yes vote. “I was able,” he boasted, “to win important improvements in the bill for North Dakota hospitals and doctors.” This is likely a reference to the final bill’s de-linking of physician reimbursement rates from the fixed schedule employed by Medicare, a concession that threatens to increase the public subsidy of private companies and inflate the overall cost of the reform package. Pomeroy shared Cooper’s hope that the Senate would contribute to the further watering down of the House bill. More “improvements” will be made, he related,once the two bills are blended into one.

Blue Dogging Healthcare

Three Blue Dogs on the take from the healthcare lobby. Each displays strong conservative credentials that feature consistent opposition to a variety of government funded welfare programs. Jim Cooper even holds the dishonorable reputation of having voted against the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. The fact that these three counted themselves among the supporters of HR 3962 should raise immediate suspicions about the nature of bill.

Far from a solution to the massive healthcare crisis, this bill is certain to be diluted further in the Senate. The result will be a bad reform that threatens to disgrace the notion of a public-sector solution to healthcare. HR 676, the National Health Insurance Act, offers a far more progressive solution. Yet, its supporters can muster few of the financial resources wielded by the powerful healthcare lobby. Support can only be built the old fashioned democratic way, through the creation of mass movement determined enough to refuse the compromises and corruption that rule the day in Washington.

Billy Wharton is the co-chair of the Socialist Party USA and the editor of the Socialist and the Socialist Webzine

 


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