Strib: Bachmann among top recipients of $$$ from insurers against health care reform

From a Star Tribune report by Pat Doyle:

As the nation faces a political showdown over health insurance reform, insurers worried that an overhaul could hurt their bottom line are funneling a wave of cash to members of Congress.

That includes Minnesota, where Republicans are the biggest beneficiaries of the industry's largesse. Sixth District Rep. Michele Bachmann, an outspoken foe of a government insurance option, is among the top recipients this year in the entire U.S. House...

...Health and accident insurers and HMOs have spent more than $40 million on current members of Congress over the past 10 years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which analyzed Federal Election Commission data.

They've also spent an additional half-billion dollars lobbying during the decade.

A "half-billion" dollars on LOBBYING? Doyle points out that these private sector health insurers are scared that reforms proposed by President Obama and the Dems would place them in competition with the public option "and even drive some out of business."

That's undoubtedly true. Some would be driven out of business. And no one would ever miss the ones that provide less and worse health care than government reform would provide. But--despite all the GOP talking points to the contrary--others would continue in business, providing a private sector option to Americans who want to opt out of the "public option." The public option would not kill off private sector health care; it would remain available to those of you who are sitting on oodles of dough. Those of you who have that kind of wealth can afford to stick with private insurers who are currently making so much out of us that they have a half-billion in spare cash--just for LOBBYING.

Speaking of oodles of dough--look who's talking about "freedom" and "the virtues of the private sector" while she's raking in the big bucks from one of the biggest monied private sector interests in the country--in return for parroting their line. If she really believed that the private sector could out-perform a public health care option, she'd welcome "competition" from the federal government. The private sector health insurers who are paying her *don't* want that competition.

They've seen Medicare in action, and so has the public, and the public has decided that Medicare is better. So the private sector insurers know that an expanded federal health care program for all Americans will kick their asses, in terms of delivering better health care to more Americans.

Which is the point of health care policy--unless you happen to be one of the lucky few receiving oodles of dough from the private sector health insurers (for parroting their line.)