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.

McCain calls out Obama's corruption

At the health care summit today, Sen. John McCain hammered Obama for the corrupt deals that helped the health care bill pass.

You have to love Obama's condescending dismissal of McCain at the end. "The election's over." McCain must have struck a nerve.

Obama getting taken to task at health care summit

The first half of the president's vaunted bipartisan health care summit is over and something unusual is happening. Obama is getting his ass handed to him. Many were worried that the summit would be a huge political boon for the president. Instead, Republicans are hammering Obama who seems flustered without his teleprompter.

Probably the best take down was done by Sen. Tom Coburn. Coburn explained that 15% of health care costs in America could be saved if the government prosecuted fraud in Medicare. He pointed out that one out of every three Medicare dollars doesn't go towards patient care but towards bureaucracy and corruption. He noted that only 1% of health care fraud is in the private sector. He asked the president why he was planning more government-run health care when the current government-run health care is so full of waste. Obama's response? He rushed to agree with Coburn even though his bill does nothing to address these problem. It isn't about actually cutting costs, after all. It's about a government takeover.

There was more. Rep. Paul Ryan nailed the president for creating more regulations when regulations hurt mostly small businesses. Sen. Jon Kyl hit Obama for lying about whether the health care bill would increase premiums. (It would, as the CBO pointed out.) Sen. John McCain took the president to task for the secret deals made in the health care bill.

Obama's response? He tried to interrupt Republicans constantly. He complained about the time limits, even though a Democratic senator pointed out that no one had been told there were time limits. He whined that Republicans should talk about things they agree about rather than attacking the bill.

We'll have the videos up as soon as possible. Obama only held this farce of a meeting to create the illusion of bipartisanship on health care. Instead the president is coming off as pompous while Republicans tear him to pieces.

New White House counsel: Criticizing ACORN is illegal

After ordering former White House counsel Greg Craig to take legal actions to close Guantanamo Bay and then firing him for taking legal actions to close Guantanamo Bay, the Obama Administration named Robert Bauer his replacement. Obama's new lawyer is known as a power player and a defender of ACORN. Bauer sent a letter to the Justice Department during the 2008 presidential campaign after John McCain began criticizing ACORN. The letter demanded an investigation into whether the McCain campaign had broken the law by attacking ACORN. The Bush administration Justice Department never took any action on it.

“I request Special Prosecutor Dannehy’s inquiry include a review of any involvement by Justice Department and White House officials in supporting the McCain-Palin campaign and the Republican National Committee’s systematic development and dissemination of unsupported, spurious allegations of vote fraud,” Bauer's letter said.

“It is highly likely that the very sort of politically motivated conduct identified in the department’s investigation to date, necessitating the appointment of a special prosecutor, is repeating itself, and for the same reason: unwarranted and politically motivated intervention in the upcoming election,” it went on.

Obama paid ACORN

Meanwhile, ACORN was under investigation for voter fraud in 14 states by the FBI. Dozens of employees had been caught filling out ballots with fake names and addresses. In Philadelphia alone, 8,000 questionable ballots were submitted. Interestingly, the "nonpartisan" group received $800,000 from Barack Obama's presidential campaign through one of its subsidiaries, Citizens Services Inc., to register voters.

Bauer is married to former White House communications director Anita Dunn who launched the administration's war on Fox News and called Mao Tse-Tung one of her "favorite political philosophers.

Thanks to Obama, we now have a pro-ACORN attorney general in Eric Holder, who has refused to investigate the group, and a pro-ACORN White House counsel in Robert Bauer. The White House seems ready to defend ACORN against congressional Republicans.

As an ACORN apologist, Bauer joins Barack Obama, who legally represented the group during a 1995 lawsuit in Illinois.

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.