Money will flow.
This simple fact is sometimes forgotten amid the partisan rancor, distortions, and fearmongering that plague the health care debate — or it is willfully ignored, given our national delusion that we can have what we want without having to pay for it. Whatever ends up happening with health care — public option or no, nonprofit cooperatives or no, significant reform or incremental, or no reform at all — money will flow. It will either flow to the government in the form of taxes, or to insurance companies in the form of premiums, or, like now, to both. Our primary decision is to determine where our money should go and where it can be spent with the most efficiency and the most benefit for everyone.
Money flows. Money will flow.
And money is flowing, money of a different kind that is deeply influential, potentially warping to the health care debate, potentially damaging to what should be done, and always present.
In my previous post about the Senate Finance Committee’s “Gang of Six,” I listed the campaign contributions each of the group’s senators — Democrats Max Baucus, Kent Conrad and Jeff Bingaman and Republicans Charles Grassley, Olympia Snowe and Mike Enzi — has received from the health care industry through the first half of the year. It was a tiny but telling bit of information, offered without comment, about six senators whose work is crucial to the future of health care in America.
Following up on that post, here’s a look at the political donations Central Texas representatives have received from the health care industry through this year’s first six months:
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin: $66,175
U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio: $23,183
U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin: $16,950
U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock: $6,650
Doggett, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, one of three House committees working on health care, is fourth among the top five Texans on the money list. Listed first is U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, a Republican from Lewisville, who has received $105,450 in political donations this year from the health care industry. Burgess is a physician who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, another House committee working on health care, and chairs the Congressional Health Care Caucus, a group he founded that “strives to educate Republican Members and staff on the issues surrounding health care policy.”
Rounding out the top five Texans are U.S. Reps. Chet Edwards, D-Waco ($84,550); Pete Sessions, R-Dallas ($70,000); and Joe Barton, R-Arlington ($61,300). Barton is the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
No other Texas member of the House has received more than $50,000 in campaign contributions from the health care industry. Go here for the complete list of Texas reps and how much each has received.
One quick note: The Texas representative who’s received the least amount this year from the health care industry is Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson. An obstetrician and gynecologist, Paul received $2,000 from January through June. But there’s a “but”: Since 1995, the health care industry has contributed $1,101,889 to Paul’s campaigns.
On the Senate side, John Cornyn, a member of the Finance Committee, has received $28,150 this year from the health care industry, while Kay Bailey Hutchison has received $1,000. Again, there’s a “but”: Hutchison has received $1,346,238 from the health care industry over the course of her 16-year Senate career. And Hutchison is running for governor not for re-election to the Senate.
All figures are from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group that tracks money in politics and how it affects elections and policy. Some groups that donate money support reform, at least to some degree; others oppose it. The figures listed here represent political donations from the health care industry, which includes health professionals (doctors, dentists, chiropractors, nurses), hospitals and nursing homes, health maintenance organizations, medical supply businesses and pharmaceutical companies. The data do not include donations from the insurance industry because donations from all insurers, not just providers of health insurance, are lumped together. Go here for information detailing donations from the insurance industry.