Evan Bayh’s multimillion dollar health care conflict of interest
Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) finds himself in the health care reform catbird seat.
As the organizer and leader of the Senate Blue Dog Democrats, Bayh has proven to be one of the most significant obstacles to the reform effort, pinning his reasoning on everything from fiscal conservatism to his fear that reform will lead to socialized health care in America (as he stated during an interview with Chris Wallace on FOX News earlier this year.)
But is this really what is troubling Evan Bayh?
Meet Susan Bayh, wife of the Senator and a busy director serving on the boards of a number of publicly traded corporations. Mrs. Bayh earns a very good living contributing her skills and knowledge to these boards and for that I say ‘bravo.’
Just what is the expertise that makes Mrs. Bayh so in-demand? With no intention of demeaning her contributions, which I’m sure are considerable, it must be noted that when Mrs. Bayh’s husband was the Governor of Indiana, Susan was a mid-level attorney at the large, Indianapolis based pharmaceutical company, Eli Lily & Company. It wasn’t until her husband was elected to the United States Senate that Mrs. Bayh’s corporate board membership career took off.
Still, Senator and Mrs. Bayh are quick to point out that Susan’s rapid rise in the corporate world had absolutely nothing to do with her husband’s elevation to the Senate.
Not everyone agrees.
When he was governor, Bayh’s wife, Susan, was a lawyer for Lilly. After it became clear he was going to be a senator, she started stacking up memberships on the boards of health-care corporations.
Susan Bayh got paid a little over $2 million for her service between 2006 and 2008. Her husband had a good 2008 also, collecting more than $500,000 in campaign donations from the health-care industry.
There are scores of relatives of well-placed national lawmakers who are well-placed in enterprises seeking favors. To a man and woman, they would scoff at the notion of being influenced by anything but the burning desire to serve the commonweal.
Let’s go on. Susan Bayh’s largest reward for her impartial board deliberations came from WellPoint, another Indianapolis-based company that happens to be the nation’s largest for profit insurance company.
Via Indianapolis Star
In case you are rubbing your eyes in disbelief over that last paragraph, let me repeat – the man who may well be the vote to determine whether or not this country gets the health care reform it so badly needs; the man who has expressed his fears that the public option -considered so devastating to the insurance industry – would place the nation on the road to socialism; the man who, despite being high on President Obama’s list of vice-presidential candidates, is married to a member of the board of directors of the nation’s largest for-profit health insurance company and has a significant part of his fortune tied up in her continuing success in that position, may be the man who decides whether real reform lives or dies.
Whoa.
I have never been a prude when it comes to the families of highly placed politicians making money. For the most part, I say live and let live.
But when a Senator finds himself in such an important position of influence over so vital an issue, how can the Senate ethics committee possibly allow this to continue?
Does Senator Bayh have a continuing interest in the success of WellPoint? You tell me. His family earned over $2 million dollars from the company during 2006 to 2008. According to Maureen Groope, of the Gannett Washington Bureau, Mrs. Bayh currently holds stock options in WellPoint valued at somewhere between $500,000 and one million dollars, a significant portion of the Bayhs net worth. Of course, one can only speculate as to Mrs. Bayh’s future at the health insurance company should her husband’s vote save the company from the boogeyman of a public health care option.
Clearly, there is a very large fox in the senate hen house.
I don’t believe husbands should tell their wives what to do, no matter who they are or what their position. I’m sure Mrs. Bayh’s career is as important to her as the Senator’s is to him. Thus, it is not for me to say which one of them should have acted to remove the conflict- but one of them sure as hell should have done something about this a long time ago.
It seems to me that it is now too late for Mrs. Bayh to remove herself from the WellPoint board of directors. Her husband has already done significant damage to the efforts to reform the health care system and any moves on Mrs. Bayh’s part now would appear disingenuous, at the very least.
It will be up to the Senator to do the right thing.
If Bayh recuses himself from all proceedings involved in health care reform, he may effectively ruin the Democrats chances of achieving cloture as his vote may be crucial. By simply sitting it out, Senator Bayh would still be directly and dramatically benefitting the company that is making the Bayh family wealthy. An odd result but then that’s why it’s called a conflict of interest.
Bayh must agree to vote for cloture so that a Senate vote can go forward without a filibuster. He can vote however he pleases on the substantive portions of the reform bill – but he cannot use his procedural vote to destroy the opportunity for a pure, majority vote in the Senate.
Anything else would result in carrying out one of the greatest ethical violations in Senate history.
The fact that nobody has gotten particularly ‘excited’ about this is amazing – particularly when it comes to the Bayh family’s fellow Hoosiers who may not be getting the representation they deserve.
Senator Bayh knows all too well how an ethical violation can affect one’s career. His own father, a long time Senator from Indiana, was defeated for re-election due to a finding that he had violated senate ethics.
Evan Bayh will stand for re-election next year. If he doesn’t get this straightened out, and quick, let’s hope the Hoosiers will do the right thing and say ‘bye bye’ to Bayh.
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No one will do anything about this because the government is full of these kinds of conflicts of interest. It would require laws and regulations to be enforced – something DC is loathe to do. It would also require people to stop buying into the Party bullshit, and we know that’s not likely to happen anytime soon!
I say put these political whores and their corporate pimpmasters on a SAW VI merry-go-round and let the games begin!
Rick,
The press pays attention to man bites dog stories. Perhaps they aren’t paying attention to this blatant conflict of interest because it’s standard operating procedure in Washington. Certainly, the more we look at how weak the change we wanted has turned out to be, the more it appears that all Senators have something like this in their closets.
I think this is one time where it can’t be allowed to slip by. If it were your “run of the mill” conflict of interest, I guess that would be one thing. But when you consider that the fate of reform may rest in the hands of the one person who may the most to personally lose from change,it cannot be allowed to escape unnoticed.
In response to another comment. See in context »People must put pressure on this topic and now while it can make a difference.
Not sure if will do any good, but I sent a fax this morning (10-29-09) to the Select Committee on Ethics for the United States Senate requesting an investigation into what I consider a conflict of interest with Mrs. Bayh’s position on Wellpoint and Senator Bayh’s public announcement that he is against the public option in the health care reform bill. I feel both are thinking of their own financial gain/loss and Senator Bayh cannot vote without that issue clouding his judgement. Perhaps I’m naive to anticipate their sending me the results of their investigation. I will continue to call once a week until I get a response.
In response to another comment. See in context »Good for you. It never hurts to send those kind of letters. They get noticed.
In response to another comment. See in context »good
Strong, reportorially based blog on a topic too few are covering. You’re right, “whoa.” Stories like this make it more apparent why we have an utterly gridlocked Congress.Thanks.
Jerry – I wish all my profs. had been as nice to me as you are!
In response to another comment. See in context »Glad you posted this Rick, lets hope it’s resounding with the people of Indiana!
Let’s not for get the undocumented junior senator’s wife form Thugtown, Michelle Obama, was given a $300,000 do nothing job a a government hospital……
Tin foil hat time!
In response to another comment. See in context »FYI Univ. of Chicago Medical Center is not a govt owned institution.
In response to another comment. See in context »Old rumor – completely untrue. Don’t know if you actually care about the facts, but you can find them at – http://www.factcheck.org/2009/05/michelle-obamas-salary/
In response to another comment. See in context »“Don’t know if you actually care about the facts”
Unlikely.
In response to another comment. See in context »From factcheck: “She went from earning $121,910 in 2004 as an executive director at the hospital to making $316,962 in 2005 as a vice president, according to tax returns filed by the Obamas for those years”
Fact check sure has all the in’s and out’s of Michelle Obama’s pay….but knows nothing of Mr. Obama’s birth certificate which by the way was sealed by hawaii’s governor
Now if you check with factcheck, they rely on a couple of Hawaiian public officals who are the only ones to have a peek at the Obama long form birth certificate.
The Obama long form birth certificate remains hidden and unverified by any legal authority to this day……and anyone who says they know for a fact—–is lying.The only one who knows for sure, is Obama, himself….and no other person on earth.
BTW, factcheck is not the final authority on anything…it’s just another website run by a billionaire’s foundation
In response to another comment. See in context »Your allegation was that she was making $300k in a “do nothing government job”.
1. She had a full time job as a vice president, as you acknowledge. By all accounts I’ve seen she was well respected so, I think that disposes of the whole “do nothing” thing. True- she was under qualified having only graduated from Harvard Law and practiced in one of the nation’s most prestigious law firms.
2. the University of Chicago would not be a government jog.
3. Do you think you’re making an impression when you switch the topic, when you are shown to be wrong, to a birther argument?
4. Nobody ever said Factcheck was the final word on anything. But, as much as you may not like it, the facts are the facts. Not much reason to pick on Factcheck unless you can provide some facts, on the topic, that reveal they are worng.
Everyone here is welcomed to disagree. In fact, it is highly encouraged. But we do expect better than going 180 degrees off topic to rant about something that isn’t even close to what we are talking about, especially when you don’t have any of the facts anywhere in the vicinity of correct. You need to do better if you want to be taken seriously..
In response to another comment. See in context »Everyone knows it was a “do nothing job”, the job….that job disappeared when Michelle quit….
You deleted my second, post which wasn’t off topic…..since Obama, himself thinks he is the ONLY topic…..
All, I can say, is thank God, Obama has hidden his birth certificate….because when he is kicked out of the white house….everything he has put his signature to….will be voided….
In response to another comment. See in context »Cue Twilight Zone theme music!
In response to another comment. See in context »Once again Rick, you are showing how corrupt the Congress has become and why we, the people, are the ones who are going to need to do something about it.
Rick, would you expand on your allegation that Sen. Evan Bayh’s father lost his reelection because of an ethics violation? I was deeply involved in the 1980 campaign and do not have that recollection.
Daedulus-
It was called ‘Koreagate”. In 1978 Birch Bayh was accused of accepting cash from South Korean lobbyist Tongsun Park in return for personal and South Korean favorable treatment.
The Senate Ethics Committee investigation concluded that Bayh neglected his duty for failing to report an offer of money from Park, although Bayh denied he actually received cash payments from Park as other congressmen had done.
Indiana historians believe that this was a very significant contributing factor to the 18 year Senator being defeated by Dan Quayle.
In response to another comment. See in context »Yes, I recall Koreagate and as you noted, Sen. Bayh did not receive any money. I do not believe, however, that this was an issue in the campaign. There was never an opposition television commercial that referenced this, nor questioned Sen. Bayh’s integrity. All three of his wins were pretty slim in a very conservative state. Even his 1974 Watergate win was slender over later Sen. Richard Lugar. His loss in 1980, along with five other progressive senators, was a reaction to the Carter years and part of the Reagan landslide. It was not a question of Birch Bayh’s ethics which meet a high standard.
In response to another comment. See in context »daedulus – sounds like a matter of degree and not really the focus on the article in any event. I accept that you may have been there, but if you take a little time to read up on this, you will find what I found – many writers in Indiana do claim that this was a significant part of why he lost. Either way, it is a footnote and off the point of the piece which is what his son is now doing.
In response to another comment. See in context »I had the experience of lobbying his staffers directly over the summer, and the excuses they were giving over his recalcitrance on health care were increasingly hilarious.
First, it was that the bill cost too much. Then I let them know, well it’d actually cut our debt if you passed it with a public option. Then, it was well it’s so early. Really? They want to vote next month!
All this garbage to cover up the fact the man is incredibly close to the industry.
[...] 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 [...]
Is everybody in this country to stupid that they are going to let all of this abuse continue?
We just continue to get the shaft.When are people of the US going to get a fair shake? When are the laws going to be enforced? When are our representatives going to be forced to do the right thing?
When are we going to create a system that is fair to all and one that works for the good of all citizens?