Bill Moyers: In Washington, Revolving Doors are Bad for Your Health
By Heather Monday Oct 12, 2009 10:00am
From Bill Moyers Journal:
BILL MOYERS: You know from the news that early next week the Senate Finance Committee is expected to vote on its version of health care reform. And therein lies another story of money and politics.
Polls show the overwhelming majority of Americans favor a non-profit alternative -- like Medicare -- that would give the private health insurance industry some competition. But if so many Americans and the President himself want that public option, how come we're not getting one?
Because, the medicine has been poisoned from day one, in part because of that same revolving door that Congresswoman Kaptur and Simon Johnson were just talking about. Movers and shakers rotate between government and the lucrative private sector at a speed so dizzying they forget who they're working for.
SEN. MAX BAUCUS: Our plan does not include a public option.
BILL MOYERS: Take a close look at that woman sitting behind Montana Senator Max Baucus. He's the Democrat who's the Chairman of the Finance Committee. Liz Fowler is her name. And now get this. She used to work for WellPoint, the largest health insurer in the country. She was Vice President of Public Policy. And now she's working for the very committee with the most power to give her old company and the entire industry exactly what they want: higher profits, and no competition from alternative non-profit coverage that could lower costs and premiums.
I'm not making this up. Here's another little eye-opener. The woman who was Baucus' top health advisor before he hired Liz Fowler? Her name is Michelle Easton. Why did she leave the Committee? To go to work -- where else? -- at a firm representing the same company Liz Fowler worked for WellPoint. As a lobbyist.
It's the old Washington shell game. Lobbyist out, lobbyist in. And it's why they always win.
They've been plowing this ground for years, but with the broad legislative agenda of the Obama White House, it's more fertile than ever. The health insurance industry alone has six lobbyists for every member of Congress, and more than 500 of them are former congressional staff members.
Just to be certain Congress sticks with the program, they've been showering megabucks all over Capitol Hill. From the beginning, they wanted to make sure that the bill that comes out of the Finance Committee next week puts for-profit health insurance companies first, by forcing the uninsured to buy medical policies from them. Money not only talks, it writes the prescriptions.
In just the last few months, the health care industry has spent 380 million dollars on lobbying, advertising and campaign contributions. And a million and a half of it went to -- don't hold your breath -- Finance Committee Chairman Baucus, who said he saw "a lot to like" in two proposed public options but voted "no."
SEN. MAX BAUCUS: My job is to put together a bill that gets 60 votes. Now I can count and no one has been able to show me how we can count up to 60 votes with a public option in the bill.
BILL MOYERS: Of course not. They can't get 60 votes. Not when the people who want a public alternative can't possibly scrape up the millions of dollars Baucus has received from the health sector during his political career.
Over the last two decades, the current members of the Senate Finance Committee - you're looking at them -- have collected nearly 50 million dollars from the health sector. A long-term investment that's now paying off like a busted slot machine.
Not that we should be surprised. A century ago, muckraking journalists reported that large corporations and other wealthy interests virtually owned the Senate, using bribery, fraud, and sometimes blackmail to get their way. Jokes were made about the Senator from Union Pacific or the Senator from Standard Oil.
This fellow in particular was out to break their grip. His name was David Graham Phillips, and one day in 1906, readers of COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE opened its March issue to discover the first of nine articles by Phillips titled "The Treason of the Senate."
He wrote: "Treason is a strong word, but not too strong, rather too weak, to characterize the situation in which the Senate is the eager, resourceful, indefatigable agent of interests as hostile to the American people as any invading army could be..."
The public outrage provoked by Phillips and other muckrakers contributed to the passage of the Constitutional amendment providing for the direct election of Senators, who until then were elected by easily bought-off state legislators.
Of course, like water seeking its own level, big money finds its way around every obstacle, and was soon up to its old tricks, filling the pockets of friendly politicians. Today none dare call it treason. So how about calling it what it is: a friendly takeover of government. A leveraged buyout of democracy.
Outrageous? You bet. But don't just get mad. Get busy.
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Clean washington out!
Change each and every person with average americans not big time polls bought and paid for by the corporations.
who were corrupted.
but average American millionaires, or at least were soon to be.
The list of non corrupted democrats would be a short list..
The corporate republican democrats are going in numbers each election..
Emanuel recruits and funds these republicans with our political funds..
After all Emanuel and Obama stated after the election that they would move the democrat party to the center... We are already right of center..
This means Emanuel wishes to move far enough to the right to shake hands with the republican extreme which are still running our government.
When Obama was campaigning for president We believe he was being reserve in not fighting back on the attacks first from Hillary and than McCain..
Now it looks as if Obama does not have the fight in him to defend against these attacks or his and the corporate republicans have the same agenda.. NO one is this naive about what is destroying our country and citizens..
to change the campaign finance laws to require public financing of campaigns like other civilized countries have. Laxly regulated campaign financing is one of main reasons countries become corrupted.
If you're in Congress and you truly want to help the country and its citizens, you stay. If you're a corrupt douchebag puppet, you get the boot.
You they are why isn't one of the democratic organizations trying to recruit replacements for them NOW.. Before it is too late... The 2010 elections are in just around a year from now...
It will take at least this long to get them known to the democratic voters.
Well it goes to follow since Americans are also fatter than they used to be that injuries would certainly follow.
this is the ultimate goal of some of these lawmakers. they become an assistant to a political lawmaker or a political lawmaker may have their goals set on being employed by a K-Street firm. the money is very tempting. the relationships are very comfortable and corporation driven. the BIG leagues is all about getting into a K-Street firm. power and money.
True.
Let’s say you have $100 to give away. You’re free to give it to anyone, but you don’t know who. Jim wants the money, so does John. Jim and John both hope to get $60. But you don’t know Jim or John. You do know Bill. So Jim pays Bill $20 to “talk” to you about the money. So does John. Bill pays you $10 to “consider” both Jim and John. It works. You give $50 to both Jim and John; Bill makes $30, you make $10. Congratulations, you’re a congressman.
Now multiply that $100 10 million times, and multiply the two recipients by 10000. That’s K-Street. Unfortunately, both Jim and John needed $60. They only got $50 and had to pay Bill $20. Whoops! THEY NEED MORE!
Money is being thrown around in order to determine who has priority suckling at the public teat. Ultimately that money belongs to us, and it is meant to benefit us. Instead it is being used to benefit K-Street.
for lobbyists......hunt them from helicopters; all hunters get paid 'per hoof'....
*
"We the people" won't stand a chance unless something happens on both of those fronts.
and lobbyist reform. Here's an interesting take on the matter and what to do about it.
Did you really buy into "Change" and "Hope"?
Obama's just as bad about being politic as Bush, and as Clinton (remember DOMA?), and Bush, and Reagan, and...
If you continue to be surprised by these events, you're naive. If you don't continue to be surprised, why are you putting up with it? What have you done to change it?
that there is a special ring of hell reserved for people like Baucus and Fowler. Right underneath the ring reserved for those who work on Barney the Dinosaur videos.
is TERM LIMITS
and even that is only a start
Kucinich, Sanders, Kaptur, Greyson, Frank, Weiner et al.
These are representatives of the people who elected them; term limits would do more harm than good.
What is needed: Voters paying attention to what their representatives are doing.
every step Tom DeLay took until foot inuries forced him out of action.
Each of the above has taken PAC $$$$
"Voters paying attention to what their representatives are doing."
(my dream)
In a majority system, the terms of half a dozen Congressmen is not going to make a lick of difference.
Term limits is not even a solution.
In a corrupt system the only crime is being incorruptable.
This is the real reason why health care reform isn't going anywhere.
How do these people live with themselves? Are they completely devoid of feelings and compassion for others? It's obvious they don't care one whit about their fellow Americans who are struggling and dying.
Baucus and his minions are nothing more than a heartless, immoral, mean, selfish, criminal gang of thugs.
Outrageous, indeed.
Well, if they find that they can't live with themselves, they just buy an additional house and live in that one for a while.
:P
Disgusting, ain't it.
Or is it the other way around?
Pay to play government.
the Baucus bill is Obama's bill.
at least two major differences between what Obama wants and what the Baucus bill provides.
From Sept 22:
Followed up by:
A dangerous secret to the Baucus health bill
as much as I hate to say this, I would.
Baucus is a disgrace.
CBS/NYT- A clear majority of Americans -- 72 percent -- support a government-sponsored health care plan to compete with private insurers, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds. Most also think the government would do a better job than private industry at keeping down costs and believe that the government should guarantee health care for all Americans.
NBC/Wall Street Journal- Poll numbers show that the American public overwhelmingly favors a choice between getting insurance coverage either through the private market or a government run option. Indeed, 76 percent of respondents said it was either "extremely" or "quite" important to "give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance."
With these facts in mind, why can't The People pass the legislation they so clearly demand? The answer is obvious. America has been taken over from within by its corporations. Term limits only speeds up the revolving door. What must happen,(and I doubt that it can happen at this point, because the takeover is already complete) is an overhaul of campaign finance laws. Just as Commercial Banks must be separated from Investment Banks, Corporate Money must be banned from Political Finance. Banned.
America was founded on the principle of "one person, one vote."
It seems that the rule is now "one dollar, one vote."
I find it ironic that the banner ad running below this comment thread is "C-17 for America." The C-17 is an awesome airpane, and certainly of greater value to America than, say, the F-22, but it is funny to see the ad on this thread.
Mine says 'Defence Jobs NZ, thousands of jobs on TradeMe', which I doubt you'd see in the States...
But the C-17 Globemaster is a pretty decent workhorse, why it would be advertised, though...
is that cash for clunkers deal still going on?
...and here I am flying around in my gas-guzzling F-18. I'm so ashamed /* sob */
on describing the disintegration of our democratic republic into the bowels of an oligarchy: "one dollar, one vote"
That screenshot of Liz Fowler of Wellpoint feeding info to Max is a ready made call em out TV ad for Mad Max's home state. Time for Progressives to go big game hunting in Montana and LA and Nev and everywhere else there is a blue puppy obstructionist pretending to represent Americans.
thinking the same thing. Plaster pictures of this everywhere, with an explanation of exactly who this woman is and who is holding her puppet strings.
Write Senator Baucus and let him know what you think. Be polite and firm. Let him know you think he should work for us and not the lobbyists.
Do it now. Do it often. Write other people who purport to work for us. Let them know how you feel.
(No offense to this fine site. But we need to put pressure on these people.)
When this doesn't work, let's work on throwing that guy out of office a.s.a.p.
Do BOTH!
I just want you to know that I support single payer health care for all Americans such as Medicare for all HR 676. I do not want insurance corporations to continue to come between my family and our health care needs. Millions of my fellow Americans suffer and needlessly die from a broken, for profit health care system. It is past time for us to catch up with the rest of the industrialized nations. Insurance companies are not part of the solution, they are major causes to the problem. Please, Senator Baucus, we all know what's really going on here: "One Dollar = One Vote". Instead of taking money from corporations, think of how much productivity our nation will generate when we are all healthy and not stressed about going bankrupt every time there is a major illness in the family. Be brave, be a honorable, be a patriot and stop the corruption now. Your reward will be more than you could ever dream of coming from corporations and their corporate lobbyists. Think of your legacy to future generations; our forefathers did.
Thank you,
Wundermaus
corporate reps think...not us.
He's not stupid and neither is Obama and the rest of Congress. They know that the American People would be in the streets cheering if they simply opened up Medicare to the whole country. The reason they dare not do this is because it would be a stake through the heart of AHIP.
They don't care about us at all. They are capitalist pigs and all they care about is money, money and more money for themselves and their corporate sponsors.
I am truly sickened by everything I am seeing. Just looking at these threads on health care reform today has driven me to tears.
I can't take it anymore. Having no representation for the people.
Barack Obama should be ashamed of himself for allowing this charade against the people to continue. Every Democrat in Congress should be ashamed.
But they're not.
It is such a horrible feeling to realize that all these people are being paid by the taxpayers yet they are only beholden to AHIP.
On the day Obama signs what ever rotten piece of legislation they cook up I, for one, will not be celebrating.
...I seem to remember Obama promising to clear lobbyists out his administration.
So, why are they still there?
In a speech last November in Spartanburg, S.C., Obama said: "I have done more to take on lobbyists than any other candidate in this race...I don't take a dime of their money, and when I am president, they won't find a job in my White House."
At other times, he said lobbyists would not "run" his White House.
Obama's campaign Web site said: "No political appointees in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27665871/
Somehow, I too heard that lobbyists were going to be a thing of the past under Obama. Would have been great.
*sigh*
The non corrupted would be a short list..
Can you add to Grayson , Kucinich and Dean...
Have you seen Feinstein pushing to farther the war in Afghanistan.
No wonder Feinstein create more wealth for her and her husband. Which her husband is involved with the war contracts, that Feinstein hands out..
The non corrupted would be a short list..
Can you add to Grayson , Kucinich and Dean..."
By the time the health care industry is finished funneling money to Grayson's Republican competitor for his congressional seat in 2010 they'll have voters in his district believing Grayson beats puppies, stomps on kittens and hates his momma almost as much as he hates America.
"Have you seen Feinstein pushing to farther the war in Afghanistan.
No wonder Feinstein create more wealth for her and her husband. Which her husband is involved with the war contracts, that Feinstein hands out.."
They don't call her Die-Fi for nothing.
Wurshington?
Crooked politicians don't stay bought, and right about now, a crooked politician in Baucus's place would be looking to sell his former health insurance paymasters down the river to buy himself some breathing room to move on and cultivate another industry for campaign cash milking.
No, the real problem here is that the folks who run this country actually believe that the only solid proof of competence and knowledge on any topic is the ability to make a lot of money off that area of human endeavor. Of course Baucus would look to folks who have made zillions off health care financing when he's writing a bill about health care financing. And where else would formner staffers of his who had spent so many years studying the issue go after their govt servce than into the industry that would allow them to show what they had learned by making the big bucks at it?
And this is not a belief system confined to our ruling classes. The voters tolerate what sure looks like a system of legalized bribery to a lot of us, because they mostly agree with Baucus. They don't want our laws written by DFHs like, say, gtomkins, some miserable pensioner who couldn't possibly know squat about health care financing because he's only been smart enough or energetic enough to exit a career in medicine with a retirement package in the low five figures.
Of course, the fatal flaw in any belief system is that when it becomes dominant, as the faith in money-making is in the US right now, the tenets become axioms rather than hypotheses, and then people act in such a way that they aren't very good hypotheses anymore, they no longer describe the real world. Back before we had the Golden Rule in force in this country, before those with the gold wrote the rules, or at least, if that pristine state never existed, back before the people with the gold had no comptetition over who would get to write the rules, the ability to make a lot of money at something probably did mean that you had built a better mousetrap. Of course now, with the Golden Rule in effect unchallenged by any other principle for over a generation, the ability to make a lot of money at something just means that you were smart enough to buy a clever rule change. Only saps look to make money by figuring out a better way to do something in the real world like deliver health care. That's hard, and so completely unnecessary when you can make money by working a deal like managed care, where the rules are written so that you make money insofar as you manage to not deliver care.
We're reaching a point, and this health care debate is shaping up to be the test case, where even the faithful of great faith will have their noses so rubbed in the empirical evidence that the ability to make a lot of money in our system just means that you're a crook, that they will leave the faith. There's going to be hell to pay when that happens, because there's no anger like that of people whose faith has been betrayed.
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