Conflicts of interest in the health care debate

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Rick Ungar has been covering the conflicts of interest of Democratic Senator Evan Bayh:

Yesterday’s post here at The Policy Page described Senator Evan Bayh’s huge conflict of interest in the health care reform debate. As the Democratic Senator likely to represent the 60th procedural vote that could block a Republican filibuster of a reform bill, I discussed how profoundly disturbing it is that Senator’s Bayh’s wife, Susan, sits on the board of directors of WellPoint – the nation’s largest (by membership) for profit health insurance company. I also noted that Mrs. Bayh’s currently held stock options in the company – which would likely take a significant financial hit should a public option succeed – represent a significant percentage of the family’s net worth.

Of course, these public-private connections run very deep.  Max Baucus has had his pockets well-lined by the health insurance industry.  He’s received over a billion from insurance companies, and over two billion from the health care sector at large.  His senior counselor, Liz Fowler, was a VP at Wellpoint.

It’s really no surprise that our elected officials have serious conflicts of interest with the sectors they seek to regulate.  It’s all about campaign finance.  Imagine if all the writers at Consumer Reports were being paid directly by the industries they were reviewing.  Would you trust them?  What if the writer reviewing the new 2010 Camry was being paid inordinate sums of money by Toyota – much like Bayh and Baucus and any number of other elected officials are paid by lobbyists in the health industry.  Would you trust their review?  Do you trust these elected officials to have your best interests at heart when it comes to health care reform?

You probably shouldn’t.

And it goes beyond insurance.  This is key.  The drug companies, the doctors – all numbers of players on the supply side have tons to lose or gain from health care reform.  The insurance companies are an easy target, an easy villain, but they’re not the only pieces that make up the many, many conflicts of interest in this puzzle.

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