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We’re at the final day of the contest semifinals. Who has had the "path of least resistance" most liberally greased by health care lobbying interests on the road of an insurance industry bailout?
Day 1 saw DLCer Debbie Wasserman Schultz duke it out with Blue Dog Mike Thompson and Danny Davis. Yesterday saw a tight contest between Anna Eshoo, James Clyburn, Henry Waxman and Jane Harman. We’re getting down to the wire.
Now that the push is on to sell the "goody bag" of detritus contained in the Baucus bill, it’s going to get harder and harder for members to come up with realistic excuses for why they "support" a public option, but won’t actually do anything to make sure we get one. Those in safe Democratic districts who refuse to join Raul Grijalva, Keith Ellison and other in the Progressive Caucus to make sure that no health care bill gets passed without a public option usually say they want to see the bill first.
Well, that excuse won’t hold forever. We’ll have one soon, and it’s going to look a whole lot like the Baucus bill. So let’s take a look at some of those whose excuses for not fighting are likely to be the most creative.
Xavier Becerra:
Becerra has taken more money from health care interests in the 2010 cycle than any other semifinalist — over $121,000. That includes generous PAC money from both AHIP, Wellpoint and Blue Cross Blue Shield. It also includes an individual donation from the CEO of Molina Healthcare, a company working diligently to destroy the public option.
Lobbyists like Tom Crawford of the C2Group (Acuity Health Care), Steve Elmendorf (UnitedHealth), Courtney Johnson of the Alpine Group and a "health care breakfast" fundraiser with a $2500 pricetag for PACS have insured that stakeholders looking for a bailout have had plenty of opportunities to get a hearing from Rep. Becerra.
Becerra is or isn’t a strong supporter of the public option, depending on who he’s talking to. He made a strong case for a public option when he released a report with Pete Stark and Campaign for America’s Future on 27 advocating for one. On a public radio appearance on September 4 he said it would be "difficult to believe" that meaningful reform was possible without one.
Speaking to the DC insider-ish rag The Hill on September 3, however:
Becerra on Thursday made it clear that he would be prepared to follow the president down a road that is short of his vision for a perfect healthcare system.
Becerra has leadership ambitions, and can always be counted on for his vote in the end. It will be a happy coincidence if the thing that makes his lobbyist donors happy makes leadership happy too. In the mean time, he’d like credit for his "good intentions."
Zoe Lofgren
Lofgren has taken a paltry $18,000 in donations from health insurance interests this election cycle.
Among her lobbyist donors are her former Chief of Staff David Thomas, who works for Mehlman, Vogel, and Castagnetti and represents AHIP and Humana. Kelly Bingel, Jonathan Hogason and David Castagnetti himself also work for the firm and lobby for AHIP and Humana. Hogason was also was the former legislative director and policy director for Rahm Emmanuel.
As far as the public option goes, count Lofgren among the "perfect should not be the enemy of the good" crowd.
Charles Rangel
As Chairman of Ways & Means, Rangel’s donations from health care interests are $108,000 so far for the 2010 cycle. His PAC contributions come from pharmaceutical interests like Amgen, Biogen Idec, and Genentech, and from private insurers like Cigna, DaVita, and UnitedHealth.
He’s got lobbyist friends, too: individual donations come from lobbyists like Frederick Graefe (Medco Health Solutions), Jonathan Talisman (UnitedHealth), and Michael Bromberg and Steven Jenning who both work at Capitol Health Group (AHIP).
Rangel’s former tax and legislative counsel, William Signer, is Managing Director for Healthcare & Tax lobbying at the Carmen Group. He also served on the staff of the Ways and Means’ Health and Oversight Subcommittee which Mr. Rangel chaired. His clients include the AHA, Healthfirst, Major Medicaid Hospital Coalition and MedstarHealth.
In May, Rangel said health care reform would fail without a public option. In July, he said a "robust" Public Option would survive. Rangel bucked the President on behalf of the poor following his speech last week, and has said that the Senate is "not thinking." He was a cosponsor of 676 before this year, but now says he won’t vote for it when it comes to the floor for a vote.
We’ll soon find out whether his commitment to health care reform is real, or whether it gets trumped by his commitment to Charlie Rangel’s leadership ambitions.
John Dingell
Dingell isn’t the chair of Energy & Commerce any more, so his health care industry donations are a modest $31,000 for this cycle. His lobbyist benefactors include Bill Brewer, lobbyist for PhRMA, Eli Lily & Novartis; Courtney Johnson of the above mentioned Alpine Group; Eric Kessler and Daniel Mattoon (Amgen); Stuart Pape (Bristol Myers Squib); Kimberly Parker (PhRMA, Johnson & Johnson) and Thomas Ryan (Blue Cross Blue Shield).
John Tzuker, a lobbyist for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld, was a legislative director for Dingell. His clients include the US Chamber of Commerce.
Dingell was working "triggers" after the President’s September 9 speech:
We will continue to discuss the public option and I will continue to work on a bill that will control costs, protect consumers and make our system more competitive. I am pleased that the President clearly stated his support for the public option again this evening. I will also work with my colleagues – from Blue Dog to Progressive and all points in between – to find common ground, and perhaps we can agree on a ‘trigger’ that would make all sides happy.
At the May 5 White House health care summit he was bragging about being "probably the oldest of the single payer proponents around here. My dad started out on it in ’35 with Roosevelt and introduced the first bill for Harry Truman in ’43." Ah, what a long strange trip it’s been for a cosponsor of H.R. 676.
And there you have it! The end of our semifinal rounds. Remember — all of these members are in strong Democratic districts whose seats could only be threatened by primary challenges from other Democrats.
12 Comments
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Dear Jane,
Thank you for your overall efforts, and yet, and yet, my Thanks! for this contest, given that you have included Xavier Becerra. And with your permission, I will “highlight” Becerra over at the web site for the Chicano Veterans Organization. As such, the military vets in his CD are going to have some political ammo to shove his way.
Jaango
Becerra
and Campaign for America’s Future on 27 advocating for one.
Shouldn’t that be August 27?
Anyway, another tough choice, with so many deserving candidates.
Rangel in a photo finish.
I had Rangel by a nose.
hard to choose with such “nice” people involved s/
Jane!
You have blown the lid off of this cesspool and it reeks to high heaven.
This morning I contributed to ads exposing Ross and Lincoln and I hope that I can support more ads to expose other infidels to their voters.
Cheers.
Thanks so much, BoM.
Showers!
I want to vote for Dingell just on basic principles (past dealings with him as chair of E&C when he stifled CAFE reform), but I’m not sure he still has the influence he once did. And he can be really cranking when someone calls him out, so what influence he does have could be used against our side out of spite.
Rangel should be in our corner, and I’m not sure calling him is the right tactic. I’d rather folks keep calling and writing and camping out at his office.
Lofgren, don’t know enough about her.
Which leaves me with Mr. “any $ is good $” “yes, I am for sale” Becerra. The sheer magnitude of the amount he has taken in calls into question his ability to do what is right for his district and the country over the moneylenders.
My vote = Becerra
that should be Dingell can be really “cranky”
A letter from Your King
My subjects,
Just want to take a minute and get you up to speed on the progress I am making completely deconstructing your government and replacing it with mine. Change is good, well as long as you go with my changes. If you want to make your changes then I don’t really care for it much.
Turns out this being King (you can call me president for a while until you get accustomed to my new title) is not all that hard. We all know that it does not matter if what I am saying is true, all that matters is that I say it loud and often, eventually it will be come true. Accordingly I have found a new way to undermine that group of radical insurgents call the “Republicans.” Every thing I propose will be based on cost savings, this way they will not be able to make a stink about it, since we all know they don’t really care about your rights. They are just in it for the money. Hold on – I don’t really care about your rights and I am doing this for the money; am I a Republican? We will worry about that later. The Rathke boys are right I need to do a better job of staying on message. It is tough because I do love to hear myself talk.
Enough about me (well, not really, we will add in a little more me later), back to the update. Here is my latest take over the world scheme. This whole missile defense shield is just low hanging fruit, ripe for me to pick the cost savings. Last time I checked I was not the King of Poland, Czechoslovakia, or the Ukraine. Why would I care what happens to them? They cannot vote for me, they can’t buy prepaid debit cards and make excessive campaign contributions; I can’t even cover them with my new Universal Health Care Cost explosion plan. Hold on a minute, If ACORN can get Mickey Mouse to vote for me they should not have any trouble getting these guys registered. Note to self: Have the Rathke boys Figure out a way to count votes from other countries in the next election (coronation).
Just like the savings from Medicare the missile defense savings don’t really exist but I am going to be talking about it for the next few months and eventually your brain will be overpowered by the mind control rays from my friends and NBC and MSNBC. Don’t even think about putting on your foil lined hats, they have a way to penetrate that now. I will be announcing new initiatives designed to save costs because the more shells in the game the harder it is to find the mark. All I every really needed to know about politics I learned from a side show carny.
We will need all those savings when the savings from the health care reform and cap & trade start to kick in. Wait a minute – that does not make sense. Well you don’t need to worry I am the president and here to help. Money is not really an issue anyway. You see we have this really neat printing press that just spits out money. We are not sure how much we need since the treasury is still learning how to use the accounting system, and that crazy Max Baucus keeps changing the deal on health care. He must actually think we will abide by the rules.
I think we need to appoint a CZAR to deal with this. I bet the Russians will think that is cool, they have had lots of czars. See that is the key to effective communication and negotiation; you have to get inside your opponents mind and find out how he is trying to kill you then help him do it. Then you have him right where you want him – you start organizing some community action groups, get ACORN an office in Moscow so they can start pimpin’ out some hookers, we send the CEO of GE over there and start making a few bucks from the Russians, open up a McDonalds and a Wal-Mart, and they will have forgotten all about this whole missile thing.
You will not hear much about this on the news (except for that idiot Glenn Beck), I don’t let them talk about important things. I mostly keep them on target with the funerals of pop music crack heads and such. They had a BIG time with that Joe Wilson catching me in that lie about illegal aliens. That was a close one. It sure was lucky that I had my “Shiny Flashy Thing” to throw out and temporarily blind everyone while the Senate covered my rear. Then his sister comes out and tells everyone the WHOLE story and stabs me right in the back after I made her brother famous. You just cannot help some people!
Did you see that Nancy Pelosi interview where she almost cried? What a laugh riot that one is. I have told that plastic faced chic three times if she did not calm down with all these ultimatums I would throw her under the bus with the public option. Boy when she gets wrapped around the axle she just will not stop.
I don’t have a lot of time left to chat, my new regulatory czar wants to bring me up to speed on how he thinks the stem cells we are going to use to cure everything may have the same rights as a human and may want to sue the government. I am not sure I can get my mind wrapped around this one, but he is convinced.
Then I have to figure out how to replace Van Jones. You know I might have over shot on that one. Probably should have warmed everybody up with just a confessed socialist before going whole hog on the communist. I will call my guy Bill Ayers and get another name. Well live and learn.
Remember, send all your money to us, we will send you back enough to live on and a couple of protein waffles.
Your King
Plenty more where this came from WWYTA.com
Jane
Let me start this by saying I am a first-time poster whose debut comment is against the grain of the posts here for which I am sorry. I do enjoy this site and normally support its stands but part of this selection seems misdirected.
I am a progressive who has been extremely disappointed by the Obama Administration so far. But I also want to see some things change. I am a boomer who has watched the hopes of my youth for peace and justice long be blighted. I also believe single payer is the best solution and a public option a key component of a successful reform package. BUT I do not want to see an expansion in coverage sacrificed to the public option if the legislative instincts of Pelosi, Waxman and Dingell do not believe that this is ultimately doable now.
Your list of congressmen and congresswomen not walking the talk is interesting. I stand with anyone wanting to tar Debbie Wasserman Schultz as an unprincipled opportunist after her despicable failure to support the three Miami democrats running last year. But to attack either Henry Waxman or John Dingell on this topic seems most unfair to me.
I have loathed Dingell on the environmental front and always admired Waxman for his legislative victories there. However I do not doubt the commitment of either man to the cause of health care reform. This has been their top legislative priority for both their careers and they both are extremely talented legislators. I do not doubt that either man would support a single payer bill if the votes for such a proposal were there. The fact that Dingell is talking triggers is not a sign that he is refusing to walk the talk. It is an indicator that he is looking ahead to the conference and what the contours of a final bill will be like.
Do I think money plays a role in the positions in the stance of many Democrats? Yes I do. But I also know that for Dingell and Waxman their stances here are shaped not by their campaign contributions but by their desire for legislation. Neither man needs the money nor is either man likely to be influenced by a former staffer turned lobbyist. Both men are far too intelligent and far too committed to reform to be easily biased in that manner. Their goal is passage of as good a bill as can be gotten from this Congress at this time.
I share that desire not as an idealist but as a pragmatist. I cannot think about it any other way because this moment may not come again. Expanding coverage to the uninsured is too important. To wait for the next Congress seems like voting for Ralph Nader in Florida in 2000 – a terrible high stakes gamble with a downside risk that is frightening. And the Democrats are likely to lose seats in the Senate from where they are now.
In addition I think this selection process does some injustice to some members of the political class who do have convictions that they will work their entire careers to realize. This is such an issue for Dingell and Waxman. Both men have waited too long for this moment.
Personally this post is deeply ironic in that I am saying all this about John Dingell – a man I have long deeply opposed on the Clean Air Act. But I will give this devil his due.
One final thought. I think it is a misuse of energy to primary lots of these people. Waxman would be invulnerable and unfortunately the sleazy Wasserman Schultz is probably too. I don’t think an opponent could make much of a dent against her. I find this terribly sad. But I do think Senators are different so I am off to donate to the Arkansas ad push.
I apologize for the length and promise to more pithy in the future.