How appropriate that if you get near to tobacco capital you should balance it by getting close to health care capital. The recipe for a healthy life.
When are radicals going to look behind the personalities in these primaries and really discuss how to promote the push for campaign finance reform? Or is that not marxist enough for true radicals?
Chris Burford
London.
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Health Care Generous to Hastert
Wednesday February 2, 2000 12:00 am
WASHINGTON (AP) - House Speaker Dennis Hastert continues to be one of Congress' top recipients of health care dollars, collecting $113,000 from the industry for his campaign committees in the last half of 1999.
The transportation sector also was a healthy contributor, with truck dealers, Federal Express, the Big Three automakers and others combining to give $32,000 of the $817,000 Hastert raised. The money was raised for his re-election committee and his Keep Our Majority political action committee from July through December, according to reports filed this week with the Federal Election Commission.
Even before Hastert, R-Ill., took the House's top job at the beginning of last year he had carved out a niche as his party's standard-bearer on health care issues, and the industry has been a major contributor to him for years.
The $113,000 he collected most recently included money from all types of insurers and many groups representing providers, such as physical therapists and orthopedic surgeons. Major contributions included $5,000 from the American Health Care Association, a nursing home group, $3,000 from Prudential Insurance and $2,000 from Aetna Inc.
An analysis by the Washington-based watchdog organization Center for Responsive Politics found Hastert's own campaign committee received $23,250 last year from PACs and employees of members of the Health Benefits Coalition. The collection of health, insurance and business groups lobbies against managed care reform.
Hastert's take was the second-highest in the House, according to CRP. He also had the second-largest donation total from pharmaceutical companies, which are fighting a broader Democratic plan to provide a prescription benefits for Medicare patients.
Last year, efforts to give patients new rights in dealing with managed care companies grabbed the spotlight as Hastert saw dozens of his Republican colleagues defect and help Democrats pass a bill that would allow patients to sue their HMOs.
The Senate version, more to the liking of health insurers, does not allow patient lawsuits. But GOP leaders have indicated they may be ready to compromise on the issue, which is popular with voters.
According to the FEC filings, Hastert raised $633,565 for his own campaign committee and $183,441 for his leadership PAC during the last six months of 1999. He gave $118,000 to GOP congressional candidates, plus $75,000 to the House Republican Campaign Committee.