NPR Asks Viewers to Identify Health Care Lobbyists, But Misses the Real Point

NPR is asking listeners to out known health care lobbyists:

When 22 senators started working over the first health care overhaul bill on June 17, the news cameras were pointed at them -- except for NPR's photographer, who turned his lens on the lobbyists. Whatever bill emerges from Congress will affect one-sixth of the economy, and stakeholders have mobilized. We've begun to identify some of the faces in the hearing room, and we want to keep the process going. Know someone in these photos? Let us know who that someone is -- e-mail [e-mail] or let us know via Twitter @DollarPolitics.

I'm the last person to defend health care lobbyists. Really, I think they're terrible, terrible people. However, NPR is diverting attention away from the real problem: centrist Democrats and Congress representatives that receive thousands of dollars in donations from the private health care and insurance industries.

If health care reform fails this time around, it will be because of so-called Democrats like Ben Nelson, who said a public option would be a "deal-breaker" because such a plan would threaten private insurers. Call me naive, but I thought Senator Nelson was elected to represent the interests of his constituents, and not the private insurance industry.

Other public option naysayers include Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) who said that the U.S. Senate will not "go down the government-run health care road" even though the most recent New York Times-CBS poll shows that 72% of Americans want a government role in health care, and are willing to pay higher taxes for it.

NPR has aimed its crosshairs at the wrong group because lobbyists are dispensable. Think of a giant pez dispenser that ejects only smiling assholes and that's sort of what the lobbyist machine in Washington is like. Outing a dozen health care lobbyists won't stop unscrupulous Senators from moving on to the next fresh-faced hustler from Pharma Inc.

The real problem are the folks taking the cash. Below is a list (PDF) of the worst offenders from Common Cause, a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization.

Pay special attention to the column "Committee or Leadership?" The representatives with a "Yes" beside their names (I've highlighted the tables for easy viewing) are the representatives simultaneously receiving money from the private health care industry while actively working to reform health care. These individuals are far more dangerous than an endless supply of lobbyists because they are actually shaping policy. Additionally, voters have control over these representatives. Namely, citizens have the ability to vote them the hell out of office if they try to shove a bullshit excuse down your throat like the one spouted by Lindsay Graham: we can't have health care because it will hurt my donors in the private health care industry.

There will always be a new shady ombudsman for the private health care industry waiting in the shadows to dick the American people just so they can get a vacation house in Malibu. You can't control that, but what you can control is your vote, and your representatives, who ultimately shape public policy. If these representatives are actively working to deny you from receiving health care, stop voting for them. Support Progressive candidates that acknowledge you're a human being and you have the right to health care.

Cross-posted from Allison Kilkenny's blog. Also available on Facebook and Twitter.

Follow Allison Kilkenny on Twitter: www.twitter.com/allisonkilkenny

Comments

[kimleehan]

Forget about the Republicans and zero in on the Democrats because if we want it to pass the public option than we need all of them, I believe we can also pass it with 51 votes if the democrats want to but I'm not sure about that.

[jeanrenoir]

Obviously, the purchase of the Congress by lobbies is the central political problem in our "democracy." When industries and AIPAC have bought all the Congressional outcomes, effective democracy is dead. A large part of the problem is that the culture of lobbyists has developed so many wildly successful populist media outlets, like Rush and Fox, to continuously distract the booboisie with "issues" like "family values." The lobbyist media play the boobs like a violin, always stirring up distracting rage and resentment, while K St. goes about its business of totally running America. Legally shortening and publically financing elections is obviously the way out, but the American mob cares more about the death of Michael Jackson, and the right to wear a six-shooter to school, than the death of democracy

[lastcallmd]

Alison,

Your basic premise is incorrect. Money follows policy, it does not drive it. An interest supports those whose positions and philosophy lean in their direction. Also, personalizing the attacks against those who disagree with you actually does more to keep them firmly in the other camp. People with reservations about a "public option" are probably being more intellectually honest than those who equate those reservation with being "bought" by one or another interest.

[DLSteinhardt]

Wow. That's one naïve post, untethered to facts.

If you're an MD, you might have enough money to try this out yourself: Send a thousand bucks to a member of Congress. Any member, not just your own. And include a really ludicrous request, contrary to their stated position on a minor matter. (Changing a major position costs more.)

Watch what happens. Listen to the floor speech in favor of Pop Rocks Appreciation Day from an anti-candy advocate, or whatever you requested.

Then tell me money follows policy, and that the member of Congress already favored Pop Rocks Appreciation Day before you bought their position on it.

[raker]

The idea of NPR, the official radio voice of the Republican Party, acting as a watchdog for government corruption is ludicrous.

[miranda2060]

So true. Be sure to read the NPR Check blog, a well-researched, ongoing critique of NPR's right-wing, pro-government, pro-corporate bias.

http://nprcheck.blogspot.com/