Introducing Huffington Post Investigative Fund's Health Care Unit

Today, the Huffington Post Investigative Fund began mobilizing a new cadre of citizen journalists to follow the progress of health care reform legislation with the support of Huffington Post's Eyes & Ears. By targeting the top recipients of campaign cash from the health care industry in both the House and Senate these investigators, now members of the Eyes & Ears Health Care Investigative Unit, will help track the key players and methods involved in crafting related legislation. Most importantly, the project will adapt itself to tackle the most pressing issues of the ever-evolving health care battle.

President Obama's rhetoric on health care reform has grown increasingly urgent in recent weeks. Meanwhile, Congress has produced a bill in the Senate and one in the House. It's a frenzied and weighty time in Washington, and the results can either be historic or, as they were at the beginning of Bill Clinton's term, inconsequential.

We need your help keeping track of it all and have three ways we hope you'll work with us: 1) Correlating campaign donations with legislative changes and votes. 2) Deconstructing drafts of legislation. 3) Tracking the moves of the top recipients of campaign cash.

1) One of the big issues at stake, of course, is the public option. Yesterday, Bloomberg reported--falsely, according to Sen. Kent Conrad (D-SD)--that President Obama was open to dropping the public option.

So who's interested in whether or not the public option sticks around? Interest groups and health care companies, of course.

This is where the Health Care Investigative Unit's work will start. As interest groups and lobbyists have already invested heavily in Capitol Hill through campaign contributions, our citizen journalists will track down which specific groups donated to whom; which members of Congress voted in accordance with the interests of certain health care lobbies; and what these trends portend for the upcoming legislative battle. With the help of MAPlight.org and their accessible database of political contributions, a team of specialized citizen journalists will spend the summer digging into the data and helping us make the connections.

2) In addition to connecting those dots (from dollars to votes), the Investigative Unit will also deconstruct drafts of legislation as committees release them. Given the recent success of the collective analysis the Eyes & Ears team did with Sen. Kennedy's bill, this prong of the investigation will help make more transparent how the language of legislation evolves and how it correlates to the wishes of interest groups and lobbyists.

3) Finally, a team of citizen journalists will be mobilized to monitor the actions of those congressmen and senators who receive the most campaign support from the health care industry. Again, with the help from MAPlight.org, citizen journalists will weigh official statements with off-the-cuff remarks, speak regularly with the congressional staffers in Washington, DC, and in their home districts, and pay close attention to how congressmen and Senators interact with lobbyists and health care companies.

Along the way, the Health Care Investigative Unit will work with reporters and editors from the Huffington Post and the Investigative Fund who will vet their work according to professional journalistic standards. Certain scoops will be picked up and managed by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund and could turn into deeper investigations.

Those up for special scrutiny include (and their receipts from the health care industry):

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ): $7,504,867
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA): $7,341,399
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA): $2,149,503
Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT): $1,795,949
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY): $1,743,835
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT): $1,685,890
Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC): $1,350,454
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX): $1,346,574
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ): $1,321,457
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA): $1,160,826
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH): $1,081,378
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC): $ 999,611
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN): $ 994,699
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT): $ 980,417
Sen. Thomas Harkin (D-IA): $ 935,711
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA): $ 919,793
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR): $ 896,067
Sen. Debbie Ann Stabenow (D-MI): $ 827,294
Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD): $ 797,185
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT): $ 788,650

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA, 6th): $2,090,127
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ, 6th): $1,627,024
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX, 6th): $1,518,285
Rep. John Gingrey (R-GA, 11th): $1,392,343
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY, 15th): $1,304,569
Rep. John Dingell (D-MI, 15th): $1,148,060
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA, 7th): $1,136,519
Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO, 7th): $1,102,468
Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA, 7th): $1,058,786
Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA, 9th): $1,046,519

The true influence of lobbyists, health care companies, and special interest groups is unprecedented as this historic battle looms. The Health Care Investigative Unit's large-scale, citizen-powered effort will cover this influence from new perspectives and unearth new facts about how Congress really makes decisions.

If you're interested in joining the Investigative Unit, please sign up using the form below.

Thanks, in advance, for all your help.

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Follow Adam Clark Estes on Twitter: www.twitter.com/adamclarkestes

Comments

[PaxEterna]

This ought to be on the front page, not buried somewhere like it is.

[PaxEterna]

This is great.

Where is Kennedy? I believe he is in deep with Big Pharma.

Additionally, why was Single Payer never advanced at all?

The answer - "Because it would never pass" - speaks volumes about who's beholden to whom in the Congress.

The American people would advocate Single Payer if it could ever get any air time. The only reason it doesn't is because it threatens the livelihoods of those who profiteer at the expense of sick people.

I am tired of the media skewing the news, framing the issue, and leaving out of the discussion solutions that have merit.

So many people on this post are advocates of Single Payer, yet there is no one in Congress who is willing to stick his/her neck out in favor of the only solution that would cover all and reduce costs.

[USA1776]

Great job HUff Post! Where is OBAMA and FEINSTEIN, though.

[PunKinPai]

While these bills are going through Congress, Obama doesn't have much input. What would you have him do?

[weslenforever]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Health-CARE-and-Health-INS-by-weslen1-090625-642.html

[Sundialsvc4]

Article 2, Section 8 of our Constitution enumerates only two High Crimes by name: "Bribery" and "Treason."

When I look at that list of names-and-numbers, I call every single one of those numbers "a bribe."

Every day, hundreds of millions of us feel the direct consequences of bribery in our Congress. We have lost homes and jobs and health and considerable money to it. We suffer under usury because of it.

This is no way to run a nation. ESPECIALLY not This Nation.

[pm247]

You know, we as a nation bought into the "greed is good" mantra beginning with Reaganomics. That was the green light for executives, profiteers and Congress to throw all sense of morality out the window and bring us where we are today.

Taking back the country will require nothing short of a Constitutional Convention addressing campaign finance reform. The bribery must stop.

[Spesabsquemetu]

What an absolutely fantastic idea!!!

STANDING OVATION FOR HUFF POST!!!

Could we request that in addition to the outstanding summary provided by mr. Estes, that interviewing Congress members with questions addressing how they intend to remedy the problems be included as part of the investigative work?

Could Huff-Po generate QUESTIONS to the CITIZEN JOURNALIST per issue / item being addressed, for example:

Can congress (in particular, members listed above who are going to be especially scrutinized) be asked whether they would support Congress instituting A LOBBYIST TAX on ALL MEMBERS OF CONGRESS who accept lobbying money from special interests, in an effort to insure that CONGRESS IS ALSO PAYING THEIR FAIR SHARE as they accept massive sums of money from lobbyists in doing - what they suggest is the people's work, while voting AGAINST the people's interests, while they also contemplate TAXING the American worker on health care benefits/coverage that Americans receive from their employer?

If the American worker can be taxed on the health care benefits they receive from their employer, why can't congress be TAXED on the LOBBYIST funds they receive from their special interest groups?

[dagdavid]

It is a list of SENATORS and Obama has already clearly announced his support for a public health care options AND it is the Senate the will have to write and pass the legislation.

[Samalabear]

I can't believe President Obama is not on this list of those receiving big contributions from the for-profit healthcare industry. He is bought and paid for at a much higher level than McCain.

[LarBear]

Samalabear.... QUOTE: "I can't believe President Obama is not on this list of those receiving big contributions from the for-profit healthcare industry."

Easy said, so do like the example above and document what you claim...

How much and from whom? Also, please document Obama's opposition to Single Payer....