{"id":435,"date":"2009-08-10T15:59:43","date_gmt":"2009-08-10T19:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/evangelicalgateway.wordpress.com\/?p=435"},"modified":"2009-08-10T15:59:43","modified_gmt":"2009-08-10T19:59:43","slug":"the-economic-calculus-of-the-health-care-reform-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2009\/08\/10\/the-economic-calculus-of-the-health-care-reform-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"The Economic Calculus of the Health Care Reform Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Verum Serum, which has been driving some of the conversation on health care reform with its videos, has some interesting information<\/a> on who is funding and organizing support <\/em>for health care reform.\u00a0 To summarize (see more here<\/a>), a variety of liberal interest groups are cooperating to pay people $4000-$6000 to canvass and agitate in favor of health care reform.\u00a0 We also know that unions with thorny legal histories, like the SEIU, are showing up and doing violence<\/a> to the opposition.\u00a0 When you send a bunch of union toughs to counter and intimidate the protesters, what do you expect is going to happen?\u00a0 One wonders whether the violence wasn\u2019t desired, as a way of frightening opponents away from the town hall meetings\u2013except the union thugs shouldn\u2019t have picked an African-American, much less hurled racial epithets at him.)<\/p>\n

Where have these interest groups gotten their <\/em>money in order to press for reform?\u00a0 One answer: George Soros (who committed $5M for the fight) and others like him.\u00a0 But this is nothing compared to what \u201cbig Pharma\u201d has devoted: $150M.\u00a0 Why would Big Pharma do such a thing\u2013because of the Faustian bargain the Obama administration struck with them.\u00a0 Big pharmaceutical companies pledges to reduce the cost of their medications by $80B as long as the Obama administration would not use the leverage of government-provided health care in order to force them to lower their costs even more.\u00a0 Some estimates show that Big Pharma saved themselves over $100B by this deal, and many on the left feel that the Obama administration did not push hard enough.\u00a0 However, in return, Big Pharma agreed to pump $150B (more than the McCain campaign spent in the entire general election campaign) for pro-Obamacare advertisements.<\/p>\n

This has gone from ugly to uglier, and it\u2019s ugly not only for the fisticuffs at the town hall meetings but also for the back-room deals.\u00a0 Robert Reich condemns<\/a> the administration deal here.\u00a0 He calls it \u201cextortion\u201d on the part of the industry, since the industry gave its support in return for changes to the legislation, but the industry simply made a wise business decision.\u00a0 The Obama administration also made a wise business decision\u2013but politics is not supposed to be a business.\u00a0 You are not supposed to sell changes to legislation in return for millions in advertising in support of your priorities.\u00a0 Reich can\u2019t quite bring himself to condemn the Obama administration, but the condemnation is implicit.\u00a0 As he writes:<\/p>\n

How soon until big industries and their Washington lobbyists have become so politically powerful that secret White House-industry deals like this are prerequisites to any important legislation? When will it become standard practice that such deals come with hundreds of millions of dollars of industry-sponsored TV advertising designed to persuade the public that the legislation is in the public\u2019s interest? (Any Democrats and progressives who might be reading this should ask themselves how they\u2019ll feel when a Republican White House cuts such deals to advance its own legislative priorities.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reich is right.\u00a0 And this is a move of questionable legality.\u00a0 Anyone who thought Obama and his circle were too pure or idealistic for deals of this sort should disabuse themselves of that notion.\u00a0 Just as we don\u2019t need companies or industries spending tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising on behalf of their favored candidates, we don\u2019t need them spending tens or hundreds of millions on behalf of their favored legislation.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Verum Serum, which has been driving some of the conversation on health care reform with its videos, has some interesting information on who is funding and organizing support for health care reform.\u00a0 To summarize (see more here), a variety of liberal interest groups are cooperating to pay people $4000-$6000 to canvass and agitate in favor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[591,592,310,706,726],"class_list":["post-435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-health-care","tag-health-care-reform","tag-obama","tag-reich","tag-soros"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Economic Calculus of the Health Care Reform Fight - Philosophical Fragments<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Verum Serum, which has been driving some of the conversation on health care reform with its videos, has some interesting information on who is funding and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2009\/08\/10\/the-economic-calculus-of-the-health-care-reform-fight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Economic Calculus of the Health Care Reform Fight - 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