Sunday, October 27, 2019
Corruption:
Thom Hartmann: The Big American Bribery Scandal Isn't Felicity Huffman's $15,000
"The American media world -- both social media and "news" media -- is afire with the news that actor Felicity Huffman is going to jail for spending $15,000 to bribe her daughter's way into college. But a much bigger bribery scandal is played out every day in America with nary a peep from the media. It's the way billionaires and big corporations buy not just college admissions but tax cuts, deregulation, and hundreds of billions in government subsidies paid for with our taxes. Just prior to the 2016 presidential election, the Progressive Change Institute commissioned a nationwide poll conducted by the highly respected firm GBA Strategies. The result showed clearly just how deep and extensive the bribery problem in America is. When asked whether the U.S. government should negotiate prescription drug prices, 79 percent of Americans agreed and only 12 percent opposed. But because big pharma bribed Congress to the tune of $2.5 billion over the last decade, giving money to 9 out of 10 members of the House and 97 out of 100 members of the Senate, nothing has changed. Thousands of Americans literally die every year because of this bribery, but Felicity merits the front page of the Washington Post. Seventy-one percent of Americans (including 56 percent of Republicans) say that all Americans should have access to a debt-free college education, but banks spent millions bribing D.C. politicians to keep Bush's 2005 bankruptcy reform act in place so students can't discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy. At the same time, colleges and universities spent additional millions bribing politicians to ignore the soaring costs of higher education: as the Wall Street Journal noted in 2015, "[c]olleges and universities have become one of the most effective lobbying forces in Washington, employing more lobbyists" [in 2014] than any other industries except drug manufacturing and technology." Fully 71 percent of Americans (and 63 percent of Republicans) supported "[giving] all Americans the choice of buying health insurance through Medicare or private insurers," but the massively profitable health insurance industry spent over $158 million last year bribing and influencing politicians to maintain their billions in quarterly profits. The list of issues and industries where bribery has corrupted our legislative system is too lengthy for an article like this; it could easily be a book..."
Health Care:
Wendell Potter: Why the Private Health Insurance Industry Faces an Existential Crisis
"I have told a lot of stories about my time near the top of the health insurance industry. This is not one I’ve ever shared, until now. Shortly before I left Cigna, I was at a meeting of the company’s senior executives. This was as then-presidential candidate Barack Obama was gaining traction in national polls and filmmakers like Michael Moore were documenting how broken our health insurance system had become. Our CEO at the time, Edward Hanway, had just been asked a simple question by the company’s top attorney: “What keeps you up at night?” He responded without hesitation. “Disintermediation.” I had never heard the term and had to look it up. The definition: cutting out the middleman. What scared us most at the health insurance companies was our place on the priority list for patients. We know people want to see their doctor, visit their preferred pharmacy or attend any hospital in an emergency. This makes doctors, dentists, pharmacists and nurses essential to the delivery of health care. They’re the faces of it. Behind the scenes are companies that make drugs and machines important to treatment, along with people who conduct research and implement health policies. Our health insurance companies, in contrast, are not essential. They don’t treat anyone. They don’t prevent anyone from becoming sick. They don’t take you to the hospital or make sure you take your pills. They don’t fund or discover medical innovations. They’re simply middlemen we don’t need. And in the industry, we always dreaded the day American businesses and patients would wake up to that reality..."
Thom Hartmann: The Big American Bribery Scandal Isn't Felicity Huffman's $15,000
"The American media world -- both social media and "news" media -- is afire with the news that actor Felicity Huffman is going to jail for spending $15,000 to bribe her daughter's way into college. But a much bigger bribery scandal is played out every day in America with nary a peep from the media. It's the way billionaires and big corporations buy not just college admissions but tax cuts, deregulation, and hundreds of billions in government subsidies paid for with our taxes. Just prior to the 2016 presidential election, the Progressive Change Institute commissioned a nationwide poll conducted by the highly respected firm GBA Strategies. The result showed clearly just how deep and extensive the bribery problem in America is. When asked whether the U.S. government should negotiate prescription drug prices, 79 percent of Americans agreed and only 12 percent opposed. But because big pharma bribed Congress to the tune of $2.5 billion over the last decade, giving money to 9 out of 10 members of the House and 97 out of 100 members of the Senate, nothing has changed. Thousands of Americans literally die every year because of this bribery, but Felicity merits the front page of the Washington Post. Seventy-one percent of Americans (including 56 percent of Republicans) say that all Americans should have access to a debt-free college education, but banks spent millions bribing D.C. politicians to keep Bush's 2005 bankruptcy reform act in place so students can't discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy. At the same time, colleges and universities spent additional millions bribing politicians to ignore the soaring costs of higher education: as the Wall Street Journal noted in 2015, "[c]olleges and universities have become one of the most effective lobbying forces in Washington, employing more lobbyists" [in 2014] than any other industries except drug manufacturing and technology." Fully 71 percent of Americans (and 63 percent of Republicans) supported "[giving] all Americans the choice of buying health insurance through Medicare or private insurers," but the massively profitable health insurance industry spent over $158 million last year bribing and influencing politicians to maintain their billions in quarterly profits. The list of issues and industries where bribery has corrupted our legislative system is too lengthy for an article like this; it could easily be a book..."
Health Care:
Wendell Potter: Why the Private Health Insurance Industry Faces an Existential Crisis
"I have told a lot of stories about my time near the top of the health insurance industry. This is not one I’ve ever shared, until now. Shortly before I left Cigna, I was at a meeting of the company’s senior executives. This was as then-presidential candidate Barack Obama was gaining traction in national polls and filmmakers like Michael Moore were documenting how broken our health insurance system had become. Our CEO at the time, Edward Hanway, had just been asked a simple question by the company’s top attorney: “What keeps you up at night?” He responded without hesitation. “Disintermediation.” I had never heard the term and had to look it up. The definition: cutting out the middleman. What scared us most at the health insurance companies was our place on the priority list for patients. We know people want to see their doctor, visit their preferred pharmacy or attend any hospital in an emergency. This makes doctors, dentists, pharmacists and nurses essential to the delivery of health care. They’re the faces of it. Behind the scenes are companies that make drugs and machines important to treatment, along with people who conduct research and implement health policies. Our health insurance companies, in contrast, are not essential. They don’t treat anyone. They don’t prevent anyone from becoming sick. They don’t take you to the hospital or make sure you take your pills. They don’t fund or discover medical innovations. They’re simply middlemen we don’t need. And in the industry, we always dreaded the day American businesses and patients would wake up to that reality..."
