Sleaze Ball Lobbyists Work With Corporate Conservatives From Both Parties To Kill Medicare-For-All

You may have read some of the coverage about how anti-Medicare lobbyists are writing OpEds for conservatives willing to undercut Medicare-for-All messaging. Obviously, the willingness of the legislators to run the anti-healthcare OpEds under their own names comes with gratitude and pay-offs (bribes in the form of campaign contributions and, in some cases, worse).

Yesterday progressive congressional candidate Morgan Harper called my attention to a specific case in Ohio, where right-wing state Senator Stephen Huffman of Miami County gave a lobbyist-penned OpEd to the Sidney Daily News denouncing Medicare-for-All (and government involvement in healthcare). The OpEd was written by shady lobbyist Kathleen DeLand who was paid by the even shadier Partnership for America’s Health Care Future.

Miami County, north of Dayton, is a red hellhole. The county gave Trump a landslide 70.6% to 24.9% victory over Hillary in 2016. Last year, in the midst of a national anti-red wave, the politically backward county only gave Sherrod Brown 35.3% of it's vote. And gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray fared even worse-- 27.0%. The county performance for garden variety Republican Congressman Warren Davidson was R+46. FDR won the county once and LBJ beat Goldwater; other than that it's been a GOP bastion within the lifetimes of everyone alive today. Every single member of the county board of commissioners is a Republican, as is every elected judge. All of their elected state and national representatives are Republicans. So... it's amazing that the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future felt they had to spend money to push its anti-Medicare-for-All messaging even in this blood-red an area. By the way, the thermometer below leads to a contribution page for candidates who are campaigning for Medicare-for-All. By all means, avail yourself of it and contribute to these men and women who will make the difference in passing what I like to call "original Medicare before conservatives cut it to pieces."

Luke Darby, writing Monday for GQ explained why. "Single-payer health care is increasingly popular among American voters. Poll numbers fluctuate depending on how the question is asked, but findings consistently show majority support for a single-payer program like Medicare for All. One 2018 poll showed support was as high as an astonishing 70 percent."

Eva Putzova is the former Bernie delegate running for Congress in an Arizona district held by Blue Dog and "ex"-Republican Tom O'Halleran, a fake-Dem who normally votes with the GOP. Needless to say, he does not support Medicare-for-All. Eva does. "The revelation that the for-profit healthcare industry is ghost writing anti Medicare-For-All op-eds for politicians to publish in the newspapers under their names is despicable but not surprising. A majority of the public supports Medicare-For-All and that terrifies the health insurance industry, pharmaceutical industry and lobbyists who profit from our wasteful, expensive, and often cruel system. They know that their profits will vanish when all Americans are covered by a universal, single-payer system without co-pays, deductibles, or out of pocket payments. My opponent takes money from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries and his anti Medicare for All position reflects those industries point of view, whether he writes an op-ed penned by someone in those industries or not."

The Partnership for America’s Health Care Future and their fat-cat lobbyists have been chipping away at that number. Darby reported that a Kaiser Family Foundation survey from the very end of November found that Medicare for All had just the slimmest of majority support, at 51 percent and that while Bernie and Elizabeth have been pushing single-payer health-care plans, the anti-working class candidates like Status Quo Joe and Mayo Pete have come out strongly against any policies that would undermine private health insurance companies. Fat cat Democratic strategists and insiders find it convenient-- and profitable-- to tell media they think strong social programs that benefit the working class, like universal health care, will hurt the party in the long run. Last month, Pelosi said she's "not a big fan of Medicare for all," and has kept Pramila Jayapal's Medicare-for-All bill-- which has 118 co-sponsors-- bottled up in the House Commerce and Energy Committee, where the grotesquely corrupt chairman, Frank Pallone (NJ) has indicated Medicare-for-All will pass over his dead body.

State-level lawmakers are also jumping into the debate. Democratic and Republican legislators have been publishing op-eds suggesting either very mild adjustments to U.S. health care, or attacking single-payer outright. And, it turns out, some of them are relying on feedback from the heath-care industry.

The Washington Post obtained private e-mails of multiple lawmakers, showing that they ran their op-eds by health-care industry lobbyists before publishing them. Montana representative Kathy Kelker and state senator Jen Gross, both Democrats, included language from John MacDonald, a lobbyist who reached out on behalf of Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, an industry group founded in 2018 and funded by hospitals, private insurers, drug companies and other private health-care firms. Among other edits, MacDonald apparently deleted a table from one of the op-eds showing that Americans spend more per capita on health care than France, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland.

Kelker and Gross both told The Post that they weren't aware that MacDonald was a lobbyist, and that they've received some push back from their constituents over the op-eds. But after Kelker's op-ed ran, she emailed MacDonald, writing, "At church, I received many favorable comments--mostly from Republicans!"

An aide to Ohio state senator Steve Huffman, a Republican, also confirmed that Huffman's recent op-ed attacking Medicare for All was written with help from Ohio-based lobbyist Kathleen DeLand. DeLand would neither confirm nor deny to The Post that she also worked for Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, but her e-mails to Huffman's staff included the group's acronym in the subject line: "PAHCF op-ed - OH - Huffman[3]. docx." The Partnership linked to these op-eds in e-mails to reporters, citing them as evidence that "voices throughout the nation" oppose Medicare for All.

In a story from November, Politico detailed the rise of the Partnership from a coalition of groups representing the insurance and pharmaceutical industries to a multi-million dollar juggernaut aiming to oppose any major expansion of government-financed health care in D.C. and across the country. The organization promotes the talking points that a single-payer heath-care system would empower "bureaucrats" to force Americans into a "one-size-fits-all" plan, taking away their "choice" and "control." According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 156 million Americans, or 49 percent of the country's population, rely on employer-provided insurance, so how much "control" they have over their health care is debatable.

As The Post's Jeff Stein noted Monday evening, "The revelation comes amid a fierce debate among Democrats nationwide about the best way to address health-care concerns. Health care remains a top issue for many voters, and industry groups and moderate [Stein, like most Beltway reporters, refers to conservatives as "moderates," a term preferred by conservatives because its more comforting and palliative to voters] politicians have warned that the ideas pursued by Warren and Sanders could be viewed as too extreme and lead Democrats to lose in the 2020 election. But the ideas are also very popular among many Americans, and the health-care industry has taken notice."

The emails offer a glimpse into the industry mobilization against both single-payer and a “public option," a government-run insurer that would compete with private plans. A change could redirect trillions of dollars in spending, with insurers, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies all directly affected.

The Partnership for America’s Health Care Future has spent more than $1 million on television advertisements since August warning against Medicare-for-all and other changes to the health-care system, according to Advertising Analytics, a firm that tracks TV spending. The Partnership has recently expanded its operations to the state level, and has heavily targeted voters in early primary states and battleground states, according to Politico.

...Single-payer supporters say the lobbyists’ role in crafting the op-eds bolsters their argument that their opponents are parroting talking points from industry groups that profit off the current health-care system.

“These secret emails blow open what I saw firsthand and revealed as a health insurance whistleblower: These companies and their lobbyists will stoop to whatever it takes, no matter how grotesque, to deny people the lifesaving coverage they need," said Wendell Potter, a former health insurance executive who is now president of Business for Medicare for All. “This is just the latest reason we need to reform this broken system where greedy corporations determine who can get medical treatment in America.”

The emails raise troubling ethical implications about the undisclosed involvement of private interests in lawmakers’ public statements, said Larry Noble, who served as general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center and the Federal Election Commission.

“It’s disturbing,” Noble said. “I think there’s a certain ethical obligation to be upfront about who wrote the editorial.”

Riverside County, California progressive congressional candidate Liam O'Mara told us last night that two things bother him in this debate, as they do in so many issues in U.S. politics. "The first is the naked corruption that squeaks through, with corporate and special-interest lobbyists handing not just OpEds, but actual legislation, over to self-serving shills who then pass it on as their own in exchange for money. Public service is supposed to be about helping everyone-- about ordinary Americans-- not about doing the bidding of an aristocracy. And it certainly should not be a way to enrich oneself, as so many of these people do. The other issue that stands out to me is rhetorical. Medicare for All is not extreme, it is the default position throughout the developed world. It is cheaper, more efficient, and gives the consumer far more freedom and control over their own care. Yet the right dominates the conversation and uses cold, hard cash to buy the air-time and spread their message. This media influence allows people with clearly conservative views, and sometimes farther right from that, to claim the label of "moderate" solely on account of their servile approach to corporate power. How do we fight a slick messaging machine that does not care about facts, only about profit? This to me is the real problem we face. The power of moneyed élites over our political system has created what Sheldon Wolin famously called an inverted totalitarianism. If we are to get a government back that will serve the interests of citizens, we need to take big money out of politics completely. So long as corporations can buy our representatives, we will continue to fall behind the rich world, losing our health, our freedoms, and our democracy in the process."

Brianna Wu, the progressive taking on New Dem Stephen Lynch in the Boston area, is an enthusiastic Medicare-for-All backer. "Of course," she said, "lobbyists for the insurance industry are fighting against Medicare For All!  They make their money on the status quo. They are not interested in what's best for the American people. I'm running as a Medicare For All candidate. My opponent, Rep. Stephen Lynch, does not support Medicare For All. Why? Because he is part of the status quo, and he relies on the insurance industry for his campaign contributions. It really is as simple as that. Stephen Lynch claims to support unions and was a union member himself. And yet, union leaders are increasingly supporting Medicare For All because they understand that health care increasingly consumes contract negotiations for their members. The premiums, deductibles, and copays that union members still pay for their health insurance often negatively impacts any wage increases they may receive through collective bargaining. I support the Massachusetts AFL-CIO which recently passed a unanimous resolution to endorse a presidential candidate only if that candidate supports Medicare For All. Unions have built and supported working families in this country for decades, and they continue to do so. Medicare For All will benefit all Americans, union and non-union alike. Leave it to unions to lead the way, yet again. When I get to Congress, working families will know I am unequivocally with them."

This is a topic near and dear to the heart of Will County board member and congressional candidate Rachel Ventura. "With the astronomical amount of money that insurance companies and Big Pharma are dumping into democratic campaigns," she wrote last night, "it is easy to understand why corporate Democrats are now using Republican talking points on healthcare. I guess the new Republican and corporate Democrats' healthcare plan is like Alan Grayson said, 'Don’t Get Sick! And if you do get sick, die quickly.'

I recently co-hosted a healthcare townhall meeting with fellow congressional challenger, Robert Emmons Jr. We heard testimony from a union member who was paying more than 28% of his income in healthcare costs. A single-payer program could be funded by replacing all private insurance expenses, co-pays and deductible costs with an estimated 9% payroll tax. Currently Americans already pay 2.9% in Medicare taxes and a smaller amount to Medicaid, depending on the state one lives in but can’t take advantage of Medicare until age 65. Thus, we are looking at replacing 28% of one’s paycheck with a 9% payroll tax. We did the math for this union member and he would have saved more than $19,000 a year by moving to a single-payer Medicare for All program.

We also heard a really tragic situation from a woman who shared the story of her 38-year old cousin. He had insurance coverage, but the company refused to cover a simple laparoscopic procedure to repair his hernia, determining it was not medically necessary. After being told several times that his procedure would not be covered by his insurance, he went home from work one day when he started to bleed. He attempted to stop the bleeding on his own with towels and sheets. He was found deceased two days later; he had bled to death.

Why do corporate Democrats like Bill Foster and some of the presidential candidates want to leave insurance companies in charge of making healthcare decisions? Healthcare decisions should be left to patients and their doctors, not people who make a profit by denying care.

The simple answer is that their corporate donors in the for-profit healthcare industry are more important than their constituents who need healthcare.

My opponent has taken more than $600,000 from Big Pharma, insurance companies and the for-profit healthcare industry. I don’t know how much money presidential candidates are taking from the industry, but I do believe that their smears on Medicare for All are more than simple ideological difference. I think they are bought and paid for or feel threatened by groups like The Partnership for America’s Health Care Future.