The health care profiteers knew that Baucus would determine their fate and ponied up. Now the only thing standing between them and their payback is a single payer national health care plan. Single payer, which would end private insurance and control the cost of pharmaceutical drugs, is not being considered – not even allowed to participate in the conversation before Baucus.
And, it is not just the chairman of the committee who has received massive donations, the full Finance Committee is a gluttonous embarrassment of campaign pay-offs. In 2008 the full committee received a total of $13,263,986 from industries affected by health care reform. Can we trust this committee to put the interests of the people before their donors? The donations to the Finance Committee in 2008 included:
Insurance $5,103,900
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $3,308,831
Hospitals/Nursing Homes $2,809,353
Health Services/HMO $2,041,902
These industries expect to be rewarded with billions, even trillions, in profits and hundreds of millions in corporate welfare. Senator Baucus’s behavior shows they have made a good investment and bought a senator who should be called Chairman Blagojevich, as I said when I was arrested last week protesting before the committee, See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52BGI5_fcUM&feature=related. He is doing his best to make sure the single payer message is not heard because he knows it is the fairest, most efficient and cost-effective way to ensure health care access for all Americans but it would put some of his donors out of business and control the profits of others.
It is time to remove Baucus from the leadership of health care reform. It is time to move the critically important priority of reforming America’s health care system from the Finance Committee and put it before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. At least their mission is health care not money.
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