Show Me the Money: Who's Funding the Health Care Interest Groups?
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As the House and Senate approach an agreement on health care reform, interest groups are applying last minute pressure to influence the outcome, reports the Washington Post. These aren't the big-spending, well-established groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or Health Care for America Now, but rather the small "more elusive" organizations that include such rabble rousers as the American Council on Science and Health, which played a role in the "death panels" hysteria.
For the last several months, these groups have been "staging noisy protests, organizing letter-writing campaigns and contributing to a record $200 million advertising blitz on health-care reform." But because many of these groups are non-profits, they do not have to disclose their financial backers. Not surprisingly, the Post has found it's still the same players--insurers, drug companies, influential conservative foundations and unions.
Many of the groups on the right receive funding from a network of influential conservative foundations, including those connected to the Koch brothers of Wichita, Kan., who run the largest private energy firm in the United States. Records show that the Koch-connected Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, for example, has given $5.7 million to FreedomWorks and $3.1 million to Americans for Prosperity, both of which have taken a leading role in organizing "tea party protests" and other anti-reform efforts.
Chris Harris, communications director for the liberal Media Matters Action Network, which tracks conservative groups, said "the conservative movement has been hijacked by a handful of wealthy corporations and right-wing foundations."
Is this lack of transparency in the spirit of our Democratic process, and just what will money be able to buy when it comes to health care reform? Stay tuned.
(Image by AMagill; C.C. 2.0)
