[Marxism] Three Ex-Senators Get It Up for the Health Care Industry Bi-Partisan Bull on Health Care

[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

http://www.counterpunch.com/ridgeway06232009.html



Three Ex-Senators Get It Up for the Health Care Industry
Bi-Partisan Bull on Health Care

By JAMES RIDGEWAY and JEAN CASELLA

As it hammers another nail into the coffin of meaningful health care  
reform, the Bipartisan Policy Center is laying it on thick. “Join  
Howard Baker, Tom Daschle and Bob Dole as they unveil their  
bipartisan plan for comprehensive health reform,” its web site crows,  
referring to a press conference that took place last week. There, the  
three former Senator majority leaders presented a proposal touted as  
“the culmination of an inclusive year-and-a-half effort that included  
strategic outreach to key health care stakeholders, a series of state- 
based public policy forums, and months of personal deliberations by  
the Leaders.”

Note the capital “L,” emphasizing the stature of the project’s  
distinguished figureheads. To drive home the momentous import of  
these men and their mission, the BPC is also running a video that has  
to be seen to be believed: Over a montage of Dorothea Lange-style  
black and white photos, it notes such national achievements as the  
eradication of child labor, polio, and racial segregation, before  
getting to the money shot: “Our party lines aren’t as important as  
what we can fix when we cross them,” the title card reads. “Let’s fix  
health care next.”





It’s all almost enough to make you forget that these three  
illustrious men are also well-paid corporate hacks, who have raked in  
funds from the private health care industry. And it might even  
distract a few people from the fact that the most noteworthy element  
of their celebrated “plan” is the complete absence of anything that  
might actually change the health care system in this country,  
including anything resembling a public option for health care coverage.

In the unlikely event that anyone thought Tom Daschle had an ounce of  
integrity running through his veins, this latest move ought to put  
that notion to rest. (We should all thank our lucky stars that the  
man is a tax evader, or he’d be our HHS secretary and “health czar,”  
and we’d be in even worse shape than we are now.) After the BPC plan  
was released last week, Daschle made his excuses:

While I feel very strongly that consumers should have the choice of a  
national, Medicare-like plan, my colleagues do not. . . But we were  
concerned that the ongoing health reform debate is beginning to show  
signs of fracture on the public plan issue, so in order to advance  
the process of developing bipartisan legislation and to move it  
forward, it’s time to find consensus here….We’ve come too far and  
gained too much momentum for our efforts to fail over disagreements  
on one single issue.

Never mind that the “single issue” is the only one that stood to make  
even a minor dent in the nation’s system of medicine-for-profit. The  
Obama administration, caught once again in the net of its own  
bipartisan rhetoric, duly praised the man who had just stabbed them  
in the back: “With this report, they have demonstrated what can be  
achieved with bipartisan effort,” said Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.  
“The Bipartisan Policy Center has produced a significant report, and  
the White House applauds their efforts.”

As part of his earlier efforts to paint himself a reformer on this  
issue, Daschle wrote a book on the health care crisis called  
Critical. In the book, he supports some form of a public option to  
compete with private insurers, and also proposes a Federal Reserve- 
style “Federal Health Board.” “Like monetary policy,” he wrote,  
“health-care policy shouldn’t be subject to the whims of subcommittee  
chairmen and special interests.” How much better, instead, to have  
the special interests represented not by lowly “subcommittee  
chairmen,” but by a former Senate majority leader—or three.

And that’s just what’s happened here. All three of the Bipartisan  
Policy Center’s “Leaders” on health care reform have longstanding  
associations with law/lobbying firms that number health care  
companies among their clients. At least two of them have also  
profited by direct payments from the industry.

In Daschle and Dole’s case, the firm is Alston & Bird, which  
represents numerous health care providers, pharmaceutical companies,  
and nursing homes. Neither is a registered lobbyist, but that’s a  
fairly meaningless distinction in today’s Washington. Alston & Bird’s  
web site proudly advertises:

Our health care legislative and policy team has the significant  
advantage of including two former U.S. Senate majority leaders– 
Senators Bob Dole and Tom Daschle–both resident in our Washington  
office and champions of many health care issues in their Senate  
Finance Committee and leadership roles.

The site also brags of the firm’s “proven track record of achieving  
policy success, as well as protecting the interest of clients,” which  
include smoothing the progress of drug and medical device approvals,  
securing higher payment rates from Medicare, and “garner[ing]  
positive legislative changes”—in other words, changing laws to  
benefit the private companies it serves.

At the time of his failed nomination for HSS secretary, the New York  
Times reported that Daschle’s financial disclosures showed $2.1  
million in earnings from Alston & Bird in the previous two years, as  
well “at least $220,000 for speeches to health care, pharmaceutical  
and insurance companies. He also received nearly $100,000 from health- 
related companies affected by federal regulation.”

Bob Dole had to work a little harder for his handouts from health  
care corporations. In 1999, Dole famously did a round of TV  
commercials confessing that Bob Dole had erectile dysfunction, and  
that Bob Dole encouraged other men in a similar predicament to  
consult with their doctors. The ads were framed like public service  
announcements, but Dole was paid an “undisclosed amount” by Pfizer,  
manufacturer of the billion-dollar boner pill Viagra.

In 2005, Dole was back on Pfizer’s payroll, promoting the new  
Medicare prescription drug plan, the government’s mammoth handout to  
insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Dole did a national  
“educational” speaking tour, funded by Pfizer, where he presented the  
“Ten Things Seniors Need to Know about Medicare’s New Prescription  
Drug Coverage.”

Howard Baker earned his money from the health care industry in  
somewhat more understated ways. His law firm, Baker Donelson, has  
defended HMOs, hospitals, and physicians practice management  
companies against litigation of various kinds, and also helps them  
fight unionization by health care workers. Until recently, one of the  
lobbyists working for Baker Donelson was Tom Daschle’s wife Linda,  
whose conflicts of interest are legion.

The Bipartisan Policy Center itself also has a network of ties to the  
health care industry, as detailed by Sam Stein on the Huffington  
Post. On its tax forms, the BPC identified drug manufacturer Schering- 
Plough as a “substantial contributor”; it is also one of 16 members  
of the organization’s “Leader’s Council.” The co-director of the  
BPC’s health care project is Chris Jennings, a former Clinton White  
House staffer whose company, Jennings Policy Strategies, “has earned  
millions of dollars in lobbying fees from companies with interests in  
the health care debate,” including several members of Big Pharma,  
Stein reports.

Asked about any “non-negotiable” elements in the health care reform  
proposal he helped draft for the BPC, Bob Dole said: “If you want to  
stop this thing dead in its tracks, or dead on arrival, in my view  
you put the public plan in it.”

And if you want to make sure the public plan dead is DOA, just put  
the likes of Dole, Daschle, and Baker on the case.


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