Re: How Private Health Insurers Purchased Healthcare Reform

On Apr 2, 9:44�am, Richard Moore <r...@quaylargo.com> wrote:

Bcc: contributors ___________

How Private Health Insurers Purchased Healthcare Reform

by Billy Wharton / March 31st, 2010http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/03/how-private-health-insurers-purchas...
hcare-reform/

In a moment of frank political revelation, Firedoglake reports that
Senator Max Bacchus has confirmed that former WellPoint Vice President
Liz Fowler wrote substantial portions of the recently approved
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Left-wing opponents of
the bill had already claimed that private insurers exercised
significant influence on the proceedings in the House and Senate.
Bacchus revelation takes these claims to a new level as they prove
that the private health insurance lobby literally wrote the bill
that is being passed off as a reform of the healthcare system.

Bacchus cited the contributions made by Liz Fowler during floor
proceedings in the Senate. Liz Fowler worked for me many years ago,
he proudly stated from the microphone, left for the private sector,
and then came back when she realized she could be there at the
creation of health care reform because she wanted that to be, in a
certain sense, her profession lifetime goal. Fowler went on to
author the influential White Paper that formed the basis for the
eventual legislation.

WellPoint is a notorious private insurer. In 2007, it was revealed
that the company operated an extensive department entirely dedicated
to carrying out procedure denials and insurance cancellations. In
2009, WellPoints affiliate, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, sued
the state of Maine in an attempt to force the state to guarantee
that the company would receive at least a 3% annual return from
selling insurance policies in the state. Not surprisingly, the
company has also been a campaign contributor to Bacchus senatorial
runs.

Liz Fowlers pro-corporate credentials run far deeper than WellPoint.
She began her career as an attorney at Hogan & Hartson, a massive
corporate law and lobbying firm. The firm is an active campaign
contributor, including, according to the Center for Responsive
Politics, contributions of $2,000 to Bacchus campaigns in 2002 and
2006. There are currently 60 Hogan & Hartson lobbyists working in
Washington representing hundreds of corporations, including dozens
of health insurers and pharmaceutical companies.

All of this explains why the Senate Finance Committee was converted
into the healthcare sinkhole. Senators on the committee received
an inordinately high amount of campaign contributions from the
health insurance industry, $8 million from PACs and $6 million from
individuals, in 2010 to insure its loyalty. Liberal proposals for
a public-option went down in flames here and when single-payer
activists attempted to participate in the debate on the bill, Bacchus
joked that we may need more police. The police arrived promptly and
removed anyone who dared to speak against a process clearly designed
to screw them.

This is how politics works for the Democrats and Republicans. The
door between private industry and public policy has swung wide open.
Corporate money rules politics. Bacchus apparently feels confident
that the American public has sunk to a level of stupidity so low
that he can pass off Fowlers pro-corporate role as some sort of
public service. Shameful.

Fowler and Bacchus are just one manifestation of a larger corrupt
political process that has slipped so far out of the hands of
everyday Americans that there is no going back. A slogan developed
during the most recent financial crisis in Argentina might best
capture what needs to happen going forward they all must go.

Billy Wharton is the editor of The Socialist magazine and the
Socialist WebZine. He can be reached at:

billysp...@yahoo.com<mailto:billysp...@yahoo.com>. Read other
articles by Billy<http://dissidentvoice.org/author/BillyWharton/>,
or visit Billy's website<http://counterhegemonic.blogspot.com/>.

___________________________ subscribe mailto:

newslog+subscribe@googlegroups.com<mailto:newslog+subscribe@googlegroups.com>

blog for subscribers:

http://cyberjournal-rkm.blogspot.com/

Climate science: observations vs. modelshttp://rkmdocs.blogspot.com/2010/01/climate-science-observations-vs-m...
ml

Prognosis 2012: the elite agenda for social transformationhttp://rkmdocs.blogspot.com/2010/02/prognosis-2012.html

The Grand Story of Humanityhttp://rkmdocs.blogspot.com/2010/03/grand-story-of-humanity.html

related websites:

http://www.governourselves.org/http://escapingthematrix.org/http://cyberjournal.org

archives:

http://groups.google.com/group/newslog/topicshttp://groups.google.com/group/cyberjournal/topics

moderator: r...@quaylargo.com<mailto:r...@quaylargo.com> �(comments
welcome)

__._,_.___

Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional Change settings
via the
Web<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newslog/join;_ylc=X3oDMTJnNTE0bHM1BF9TA...
Dc2NTkwBGdycElkAzIwMTUzOTc2BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDQ3MQRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNzdG5ncw
RzdGltZQMxMjcwMjA4MTI3> (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via
email: Switch delivery to Daily
Digest<mailto:newslog-dig...@yahoogroups.com?subject=Email%20Delivery:%20Dige
st> | Switch to Fully
Featured<mailto:newslog-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com?subject=Change%20Deliver
y%20Format:%20Fully%20Featured> Visit Your Group
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newslog;_ylc=X3oDMTJlZ2tlYnFjBF9TAzk3ND...
GdycElkAzIwMTUzOTc2BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2MDQ3MQRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNocGYEc3RpbWUDMT
I3MDIwODEyNw--> | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use
<http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> | Unsubscribe
<mailto:newslog-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe>

__,_._,___