Is ObamaCare a huge payback to the health industry?

Barack Obama spent the past year demonizing health insurance companies in an effort to pass ObamaCare. But something funny happened when he signed the bill yesterday, as the Washington Examiner reported.

[E]ven before the president spoke, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America -- whose $26.1 million lobbying effort in 2009 was the most expensive by any industry lobby in history -- hailed the health package as "important and historic."

The second-biggest industry lobby in America, the American Medical Association, also cheered, as did the American Hospital Association, the No. 5 industry lobby. Throw in the goliath senior lobby AARP and Beltway powerhouse General Electric, and you realize Obama's underdog tale is all bark and no bite.

The close ties between Obama and the AARP and GE have been detailed here before. Obama's friend A. Barry Rand heads up the AARP and cleaned up thanks to the stimulus. Jeffrey Immelt, president of GE, runs the Obama-obsessed cable network MSNBC and has been appointed by the president to the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve.

But why is the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America, the American Medical Association, and the American Hospital Association hailing ObamaCare? Aren't these the very industries Obama wanted restrained? The fact is that when ObamaCare goes into law, it will become much more difficult to start a health insurance or medical company in America. The new regulations in Obama's plan will cost businesses millions. The industry behemoths, like Blue Cross Blue Shield, can easily pay that bill. Smaller companies and new start ups don't have that kind of money. It's why PhRMA struck a deal with Obama so early in the health care fight. They knew his plan would shore up existing business and preserve the status quo by keeping smaller businesses at bay. And with an insurance mandate requiring everyone in America to get health insurance, the big boys will have millions of new potential customers.

The Examiner points out the other goodies for big business in the bill.

Taxpayers will subsidize drug makers even more.

Employers will be forced to give prescription-drug insurance to workers.

Generic versions of biologic drugs will be kept off the market for 12 years.

States will be forced to subsidize drugs through Medicaid.

Americans will still be prohibited from importing cheaper drugs from China.

Medicare will continue overpaying for drugs.

So why would Obama sign into law a bill that's a boon to the very industry he claims to despise? These are the lists of the top 20 industry contributors to Barack Obama and John McCain during the 2008 campaign, taken from OpenSecrets.org.

Obama

1 Lawyers/Law Firms $43,154,642

2 Retired $42,892,978

3 Education $22,976,126

4 Misc Business $16,500,999

5 Securities & Investment $14,891,735

6 Health Professionals $11,746,631

7 Business Services $11,503,771

8 Democratic/Liberal $11,106,487

9 Real Estate $10,422,031

10 TV/Movies/Music $9,004,072

11 Civil Servants/Public Officials $8,807,391

12 Computers/Internet $8,521,003

13 Women's Issues $6,906,664

14 Misc Finance $6,398,267

15 Printing & Publishing $5,968,031

16 Other $3,669,123

17 Hospitals/Nursing Homes $3,339,099

18 Commercial Banks $3,316,351

19 Non-Profit Institutions $2,974,895

20 Construction Services $2,915,255

McCain

1 Retired $32,672,270

2 Lawyers/Law Firms $9,926,121

3 Real Estate $8,871,369

4 Securities & Investment $8,698,635

5 Republican/Conservative $6,787,091

6 Misc Business $5,921,718

7 Health Professionals $5,258,836

8 Misc Finance $5,210,724

9 Business Services $3,368,914

10 Insurance $2,447,206

11 Oil & Gas $2,402,937

12 Commercial Banks $2,293,748

13 General Contractors $2,023,286

14 Civil Servants/Public Officials $1,994,145

15 Misc Manufacturing & Distributing $1,848,756

16 Education $1,744,451

17 Computers/Internet $1,478,327

18 Construction Services $1,261,227

19 Lobbyists $1,227,875

20 Accountants $1,216,728

Obama received $6.5 million more in his campaign coffers from the health industry than did McCain, as well as an additional $3.3 million from hospitals and nursing homes. This was during an election in which he vigorously supported the same health care reform plan that he signed yesterday. The big corporations knew all along what Obama was up to and they donated big bucks. After yesterday, they'll reap the rewards.

Obama's affirmative action college scheme

As we've seen countless times, Obama views the world through race-tinted glasses. Now in another executive order dumped on a Friday afternoon, the president is showing just how obsessed he is with affirmative action schemes. He's willing to kick more federal aid to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, but exclude all others.

The executive order establishes the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). As we've seen over and over, whenever Obama wants to grossly increase spending for something, he always appoints a commission first. The commission then always recommends increasing spending and Obama agrees. So when this long executive order says the commission will "identify Federal programs and initiatives in which HBCUs may be either underserved or underused as national resources," it means "find ways to spend more."

And it's not just racial ideology driving the president. Obama has many cronies in high places at HBCUs. One example is Howard University in Washington, DC, which is headed up by Barry Rand. Rand has strong connections to Obama and is also president of the AARP, which supported the health care reform bill at Obama's request. Rand took a lot of heat for supporting ObamaCare, so no doubt he'll appreciate the kickbacks to Howard U.

All colleges are suffering from the bad economy right now. If Obama is going to be a wild-eyed spender, why can't he appoint a commission to study all colleges, black, white, and everything in between?

Obama says jump and the AARP asks how high

This week the AARP fired off an open letter in support of Barack Obama's health care plan to Harry "The Bill won't work in Nevada" Reid. Look for AARP president and longtime Obama crony Barry Rand to get an ambassadorship after all this.

Dear Leader Reid:

Thank you for your commitment—and that of Chairmen Baucus and Dodd—to closing the Medicare Part D coverage gap or “doughnut hole” by 2019 during the upcoming House-Senate conference committee on health reform legislation. We understand, given Senate constraints, that this action must wait until conference.

As you know, millions of seniors are being overwhelmed by skyrocketing out-of-pocket drug costs. Too many are going without the drugs they desperately need, which can lead to more serious health problems and higher long-term costs—both for them and for our health care system as a whole. In Nevada alone, 12 percent of those enrolled in Part D fall into the doughnut hole every year. For these reasons, closing the coverage gap is a critical element of health reform and will help to constrain costs throughout the system.

...

With your commitment to closing the doughnut hole in conference, consistent with the President’s pledge, and the many positive features referenced above, AARP is pleased to support your efforts to obtain cloture, and urges timely passage of this legislation by the Senate.

The current health care bill does extend Medicare Part D coverage to seniors of a certain income level not already covered, known as the "doughnut hole." But it also slashes spending on Medicare to pay for Obama's government takeover of the rest of the health industry.

So why is the AARP in full support of a bill that essentially redistributes money from seniors to younger people? Maybe it's because they received $18 million in stimulus money, the seventh largest sum in Washington, DC. Maybe it's because AARP president Rand is a big Obama donor with close ties to the president. Either way, it looks like the AARP has been completely bought off.

Tear Up Your AARP Card

My grandfather destroyed his years ago and it's time for our elderly readers to do the same. The AARP is not the caring seniors club that it used to be. It's morphed into a self-interested insurance company that's been entirely bought off by the Obama administration.

In May of this year, the AARP board of directors elected a new president: Barry Rand. Rand is a genuine success story and self-made man who worked his way up through the corporate world with tenacity. He also reads from the same playbook as Jesse Jackson, gaining a reputation for fierce advocacy on behalf of minority-owned businesses. In this sense, he was an odd choice. Why elect a man who has spent his life advocating for racial minorities to helm a group that advocates for seniors?

Rand is a Democrat with strong ties to Barack Obama, including a $2,300 donation to his presidential campaign in 2008. Although a clear picture of the relationship between Rand and Obama through the years is unclear, it's preposterous to think that Obama never came to the attention of minority advocate Rand.

In Rand, Obama had a pliant liberal ideologue who could be persuaded. Almost immediately, the payoffs to the AARP began. The group received some $18 million in stimulus money, an incredible sum and the fourteenth-largest stimulus payout in Washington, DC. (These are those "shovel-ready jobs" Obama and Biden were always harping about.) The other big kickback will come if Congress passes the health care bill. As detailed by political pollster Dick Morris, the AARP had transitioned from an advocacy group to an insurance company, selling seniors "Medi-gap," which filled the holes in the government's Medicare coverage. President George W. Bush knocked the wind out of this program when he created Medicare Advantage, which served the same purpose as Medi-gap, but did so with much lower costs thanks to heavy government subsidies. Obama's health care bill diverts Medicare Advantage subsidies which will drive costs up and, surprise surprise, give the AARP a serious edge.

Obama wanted something substantial for these kickbacks. In August, he gave the AARP what seemed like a warning when he claimed he had the endorsement of the group. In fact the AARP had yet to endorse ObamaCare and asked for a retraction, but the signal had been sent. Shortly thereafter, Barry Rand's AARP endorsed Barack Obama's health care bill.

This ignited a firestorm among senior citizens, who began tearing up their AARP cards and mailing them back to Washington. Sen. John McCain, a senior himself, encouraged them to do just that on the Senate floor. With that one endorsement, Rand presided over perhaps the largest AARP exodus in history.

If you're currently an AARP member and still have your card, it's time to consider doing the same. Your organization has thrown itself into the cigar-wreathed Washington back rooms with Barack Obama. It has endorsed legislation that will cut both Medicare and Medicare Advantage. It has blithely ignored concerns among seniors that the bill could bloom into government-run health care that would ration treatments for the elderly. It has thrown its weight behind a bill that ultimately does nothing to help seniors, who already have taxpayer-funded health care and prescription drugs.

The AARP under Barry Rand has shown itself to be more concerned with receiving free public money than stumping for seniors. It's time to take your money elsewhere.

Obama Maxes Out Our Credit Card

File this under galling hypocrisy. Barack Obama has spent our nation so far into debt, Congress is rushing to raise the national debt ceiling. Right now the government is legally barred from accruing a debt greater than $12 trillion. With his enormous spending spree underway, Obama is slated to exceed that debt. If Congress doesn't either cut spending or increase the debt ceiling by $1 trillion or so, the government could go broke and lose its triple-A credit status.

You didn't think the profligate Barack Obama was going to cut spending, did you?

But the president hasn't always been so reckless with the country's finances. Back in 2006, President Bush asked Congress to raise the debt ceiling, primarily to finance the continuing military escalation in Iraq. With righteous indignation, an outraged Senator Obama took to the floor. "Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren," he railed. "America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership." Although domestic spending increased between 2001 and 2008, Bush's government debt was spent primarily fighting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama is more than willing to mortgage America's future in order to bring one-sixth of the American economy under federal control with his health care bill, or to give the likes of the AARP and La Raza kickbacks with the stimulus. But accruing debt to fight for national security? That's just irresponsible.

Obama later voted "no" on the debt ceiling increase along with his fellow Democrats.

This is stunning hypocrisy, but it also has a large silver lining. Obama is trying to force feed his health care bill through the Senate in December, the same month in which the debt ceiling must be raised to prevent financial hell from breaking loose. A coalition of Republican and moderate Democrat senators, led by Dianne Feinstein of California, are drawing a line in the sand, demanding that Obama submit budget cuts before they'll vote to raise the debt ceiling. If more liberal Democrats protest this (which they likely will), there could be a contentious battle on the Senate floor which could drag on for days. This would take up a good deal of the precious time that Harry Reid needs to steer ObamaCare through before the Senate adjourns for Christmas break.

Will Obama's big spending come back to bite him this month? It seems almost too good to be true.