In 1993, Hillary Clinton was spot on when she bemoaned“high-priced lobbyists who get paid to keep everything the same” in our barbaric, grossly-expensive health care non-system.
It’s beyond tragic, then, that the Hillary Clinton of 2016 is now receiving significant fundraising support from one of those “high-priced” lobbyists, Heather Podesta, the millionaire ex-wife of her campaign chair’s brother.
Meanwhile, one of Cigna’s new lobbyists is Heather Podesta, a major fundraiser for the Democratic Party.
The insurers’ moves to supersize their lobbying presence in Washington comes after the American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association, two medical groups with political clout, launched a campaign to try to press the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission to carefully scrutinize the mergers for possible antitrust problems.
In fact, this very lobbyist recently told Ezra Klein that she doesn’t think lobbyists actually do any damage to U.S. politics (the Hillary of 1993 would beg to differ!), before adding that she feels a bit impoverished.
As for the idea of taking money out of politics, “I just find it preposterous,” she said. It is “not the lobbying class that keeps people from taking hard votes, it’s the member themselves,” Podesta claimed.
The interview was held on Facebook, and a question came in from a viewer: “If lobbyists don’t have more power and influence than a regular person, why are lobbyists paid so much?”
“I think we’re not paid enough,” Podesta replied with a smile, as she and Klein shared a laugh.
The for-profit health insurance industry in the United States is a vile and disgusting industry — remember that, prior to the ACA, they could literally even deny you the “privilege” of buying health insurance, if you had a past history of acne or depression, not to mention diabetes or cancer. Well, Cigna is one of the most vile of a vile lot, infamous for its denial of California teenager Nataline Sarkisyan’s liver transplant. After outrage in the media, Cigna reversed its decision, but it was too late for Nataline, who died shortly after the reversal.
I’m not going to apologize for saying that it is appalling that Hillary Clinton — who routinely touts her history of fighting for health care reform (i.e. “it was HillaryCare before it was ObamaCare”) — would associate herself with a woman engaged in lobbying on behalf of a corporation as morally bankrupt as Cigna.
Where is the Hillary Clinton of 1993? The one who publicly condemned “high-priced” lobbyists and brilliantly articulated the damage they do to our politics?
Can we have her back, please?