575 visits by health care industry heavyweights since Jan 20
Pepe Silvia
Posts: 3,758
hmmm, didn't Obama pledge if anyone met with executives or lobbyists it would be broadcast on the internet and CSPAN?
http://www.alternet.org/politics/144209 ... cords_show
White House's Ties to Health Care Industry Deeper Than Visitor Records Show
By Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet. Posted November 26, 2009.
The White House released records cataloguing 575 visits by health care industry heavyweights since Jan. 20. The ties run deep.
In August, the Associated Press asked the Obama White House -- which has promised to be the most transparent administration 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has ever seen -- to release information on all communications between top staff and health care industry bigwigs. The call went unanswered, so in September the AP downgraded its request to a log of health care-related visits to those same top White House officials.
On Wednesday, the White House released records of 575 such visits since Jan. 20. It catalogs meetings with 22 top Obama aides including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and senior advisers Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, and Pete Rouse.
The list of White House guests is a real who's-who of the health care industry. It includes Billy Tauzin, chief of PhRma, the drug industry lobby; Scott Serota, president and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield; and lobbyists from the Business Roundtable, an organization representing the policy interests of head honchos at major U.S. companies.
The AP detailed a few of the hundreds of health care meetings, and from that sampling, I figured we might find some interesting connections -- this being Washington, D.C. -- between the visitors and the White House staffers they met with. In order to more effectively analyze the ties between the people and organizations represented at these meetings, AlterNet enlisted the research skills of Kevin Connor, co-founder of LittleSis.org, a watchdog site self-styled as an "involuntary facebook for powerful people."
In our social network analysis, Connor created a list of the 30 White House visitors mentioned by name in the AP story. (You can check out organizational interlocks and figure out where they've sent their political donations to. Be sure to add and edit, as LittleSis is a crowdsourced research platform.)
Here is what we found. (All links lead to interactive profiles of each entity on LittleSis.)
• Rahm Emanuel is closely tied to two of the folks on the list. The first is Joel Johnson, a friend who met the chief of staff one-on-one and who lobbies for UnitedHealth and Kinetic Concepts, a medical device maker. The other is Jonathan Hoganson, a lobbyist who represents Merck and PhRma and who just happens to have worked as Emanuel's legislative director for five years and was also a legislative fellow for Rod Blagojevich. Hoganson met with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm's older brother and a special adviser on health care policy in the White House.
• Connections to Tom Daschle, failed nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, include Joshua Ackil, his former advisor on technology, and lobbyists for Alston & Bird, where Daschle was a policy advisor until recently.
• Nancy Pelosi, Joe Lieberman, and Dick Durbin all have former aides on the AP's list, in addition to Emanuel and Daschle.
• Interestingly, from the AP's selection, relatively few are Obama donors. In fact, our searches turned up only three donors: Gerald McEntee, president of AFSCME, Richard Trachtman, lobbyist for the American College of Physicians, and Barry Rand, CEO of the AARP. We ought note, however, that the small number of Obama donors looks somewhat low, but this may be due to the small sampling the AP published. The general observation is nevertheless likely correct -- this isn't a list of Obama donors.
• Indeed, this bunch looks like GOP donors. The high-level donors include Merck CEO Richard Clark and Blue Cross lobbyist Kenneth Kies, who have donated over $100,000 combined to the National Republican Congressional Committee since 1992.
• And because the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has given us a lot to groan about recently, we thought we'd throw in the fact that two on the list sit on its Association Committee of 100, the group that recommends organization policy. They are Billy Tauzin, president of PhRma, and Richard Umbdenstock, head of the American Hospital Association.
What conclusions can we draw? Well, we can certainly say that lobbyists continue to have an incredibly strong presence in the White House, despite Obama's rhetorical campaign flourishes that promised to lessen that sort of influence. Next, although every health care heavyweight has bemoaned health care reform, they have also had the opportunity to speak their minds -- often more than once -- to the big decision-makers in the White House. We can likely assume, then, that these meetings have informed the White House's own visits with congressional leadership charged with crafting reform legislation. In this sense and given where this group's major political donations have gone to -- Republicans -- it's clear that despite industry and across-the-aisle whining, whatever bill finally comes out of Congress will be much more bipartisan than floor votes may indicate.
In the end, the White House is closely intertwined with the health care industry -- at all sorts of professional and personal levels -- and the "new" health care system will bear the imprint of those relationships.
http://www.alternet.org/politics/144209 ... cords_show
White House's Ties to Health Care Industry Deeper Than Visitor Records Show
By Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet. Posted November 26, 2009.
The White House released records cataloguing 575 visits by health care industry heavyweights since Jan. 20. The ties run deep.
In August, the Associated Press asked the Obama White House -- which has promised to be the most transparent administration 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has ever seen -- to release information on all communications between top staff and health care industry bigwigs. The call went unanswered, so in September the AP downgraded its request to a log of health care-related visits to those same top White House officials.
On Wednesday, the White House released records of 575 such visits since Jan. 20. It catalogs meetings with 22 top Obama aides including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and senior advisers Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, and Pete Rouse.
The list of White House guests is a real who's-who of the health care industry. It includes Billy Tauzin, chief of PhRma, the drug industry lobby; Scott Serota, president and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield; and lobbyists from the Business Roundtable, an organization representing the policy interests of head honchos at major U.S. companies.
The AP detailed a few of the hundreds of health care meetings, and from that sampling, I figured we might find some interesting connections -- this being Washington, D.C. -- between the visitors and the White House staffers they met with. In order to more effectively analyze the ties between the people and organizations represented at these meetings, AlterNet enlisted the research skills of Kevin Connor, co-founder of LittleSis.org, a watchdog site self-styled as an "involuntary facebook for powerful people."
In our social network analysis, Connor created a list of the 30 White House visitors mentioned by name in the AP story. (You can check out organizational interlocks and figure out where they've sent their political donations to. Be sure to add and edit, as LittleSis is a crowdsourced research platform.)
Here is what we found. (All links lead to interactive profiles of each entity on LittleSis.)
• Rahm Emanuel is closely tied to two of the folks on the list. The first is Joel Johnson, a friend who met the chief of staff one-on-one and who lobbies for UnitedHealth and Kinetic Concepts, a medical device maker. The other is Jonathan Hoganson, a lobbyist who represents Merck and PhRma and who just happens to have worked as Emanuel's legislative director for five years and was also a legislative fellow for Rod Blagojevich. Hoganson met with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm's older brother and a special adviser on health care policy in the White House.
• Connections to Tom Daschle, failed nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, include Joshua Ackil, his former advisor on technology, and lobbyists for Alston & Bird, where Daschle was a policy advisor until recently.
• Nancy Pelosi, Joe Lieberman, and Dick Durbin all have former aides on the AP's list, in addition to Emanuel and Daschle.
• Interestingly, from the AP's selection, relatively few are Obama donors. In fact, our searches turned up only three donors: Gerald McEntee, president of AFSCME, Richard Trachtman, lobbyist for the American College of Physicians, and Barry Rand, CEO of the AARP. We ought note, however, that the small number of Obama donors looks somewhat low, but this may be due to the small sampling the AP published. The general observation is nevertheless likely correct -- this isn't a list of Obama donors.
• Indeed, this bunch looks like GOP donors. The high-level donors include Merck CEO Richard Clark and Blue Cross lobbyist Kenneth Kies, who have donated over $100,000 combined to the National Republican Congressional Committee since 1992.
• And because the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has given us a lot to groan about recently, we thought we'd throw in the fact that two on the list sit on its Association Committee of 100, the group that recommends organization policy. They are Billy Tauzin, president of PhRma, and Richard Umbdenstock, head of the American Hospital Association.
What conclusions can we draw? Well, we can certainly say that lobbyists continue to have an incredibly strong presence in the White House, despite Obama's rhetorical campaign flourishes that promised to lessen that sort of influence. Next, although every health care heavyweight has bemoaned health care reform, they have also had the opportunity to speak their minds -- often more than once -- to the big decision-makers in the White House. We can likely assume, then, that these meetings have informed the White House's own visits with congressional leadership charged with crafting reform legislation. In this sense and given where this group's major political donations have gone to -- Republicans -- it's clear that despite industry and across-the-aisle whining, whatever bill finally comes out of Congress will be much more bipartisan than floor votes may indicate.
In the end, the White House is closely intertwined with the health care industry -- at all sorts of professional and personal levels -- and the "new" health care system will bear the imprint of those relationships.
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
And since large portions of the american public are allergic to any real public option, wouldn't they have to sit down with the various bigwigs of the private insurance companies in order to work something out? (Since no public option de facto means that these people will still control health care, like it or not)
In other words, how are they gonna achieve anything under these circumstances, unless they talk to these people?
You know, if you really wanted to pressure the industry, then a drive for a public option should be celebrated in the streets. If that's off the table, then all that's left is striking a deal with them to get something at all.
And politics without lobbying in a capitalist system? Get real. Won't ever happen.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
possibly....however, when Obama was running he talked about the secrecy of the past administration, like when they had those closed door meetings with lobbyists and execs and refused to say who....he then vowed if there were any such meetings under his administration there would be full transparency and the meetings would be broadcast on the internet and CSPAN....which never happened. they had closed door meetings with these people and fought to not release who they met with
if it's so obvious it can't happen, that these meetings somehow HAVE to be behind closed doors he should be more careful about making such campaign promises that are contrary to that
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
and no one breaks a campaign promise like Obama
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
The pragmatism of my politics just keeps growing linearly with my age it seems.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
Well, as all election winners learn: talking is cheap, and there's usually a reason why things are the way they are. Rarely because the one before them were just being difficult. Which is why it is always a good idea to whine in opposition about everything, regardless whether you have a better plan. I find it kinda funny in Norway that the opposition actually bugs the ruling coalition about not keeping promises, that the opposition never would have acted on themselves. Also, they bitched about the government using too much of our oil money in the budget this year (about 20 billion NOK more than usual), but in their own budget use only 2 billions less. They should just shut up about "record excessive spending" then, shouldn't they? Seeing as they would have broken the record themselves otherwise...
I have absolutely no fucking patience for smallminded partisan bickering politics. Feel free to discuss real politics certainly, but the sniping shit, damn...
I dunno if you've seen "The Wire", but I really liked the scene where Carcetti has unseated the mayor, who tells him that every day from then on, he's gonna be served a big steaming bowl of shit that he's gotta eat. I think that's often the reality.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
so we've reached the consensus that obama was full of cheap talk? yeah, i'll certainly agree with that.
of course he has to meet with these types of people at times, however for someone who campaigned for years claiming he would be the exact opposite and promising change we can believe in and these people woudn't have a say in his whitehouse, that when they met with these people it would be broadcast for everyone to see, then concludes by shouting "NO MORE SECRECY, NO MORE SECRECY!!" to pull the same shit....yeah, i get a little frustrated because this 'at least he's not....' theory does nothing but keep us in this cycle. i just think back to before november when people said this is how obama would be and how nasty the reaction was by many and then still see the rationalizations just like with bush. if bush did many of the things obama has done or hasn't done they wouldn't say 'hey, let's give bush more time....' so let's call a spade a spade (and i mean that in the ani difranco song sense, not the racist sense)
while there has been some positive changes made i really think many of those things would've happened no matter which democrat won. everyone gets a few years of having peanuts thrown to them while nothing substantial is done
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'