Reply #24: The Health Insurers Have Already Won

[flyarm]

do read this whole article..Daschle is one of the biggest whores and he is working in an unoffical capacity to this White House!

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_33/b414 ...

Cover Story August 6, 2009, 5:00PM EST text size: TT

The Health Insurers Have Already Won
How UnitedHealth and rival carriers, maneuvering behind the scenes in Washington, shaped health-care reform for their own benefit

Snip:

In 2006, McGuire lost his job after getting caught up in the manipulation, or "backdating," of company stock options. UnitedHealth was forced to restate earnings over a 12-year period to reflect the extra compensation it had granted McGuire and other executives. McGuire's chief lieutenant, Stephen Hemsley, took over as CEO in December 2006. Two independent inquiries concluded that Hemsley wasn't involved with the backdating. Nevertheless he forfeited $190 million in past stock compensation and unrealized gains to resolve the matter.

Hemsley, a former chief financial officer of the now-defunct Arthur Andersen accounting firm, generally shuns the spotlight. But when health reform became a central issue in the runup to the last Presidential election, company executives say they realized UnitedHealth needed to go on the offensive. Hemsley met with White House officials on May 15 and May 22 to promote his company's prescription for cutting federal health spending.

In August 2007, the company hired Sommer, who previously headed global lobbying for Goldman Sachs (GS). He quickly built a new Washington team of former congressional aides and other K Street operatives. One key acquisition: Cory Alexander, former chief of staff for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), an influential moderate Democrat. Alexander had been lobbying for the huge mortgage financier Fannie Mae (FNM). Today, Sommer directs a team of nearly 50 people from UnitedHealth's spacious Washington office on Pennsylvania Avenue, equidistant between the Capitol and White House. The company spent more than $3.4 million on in-house and outside lobbying in the first half of 2009.

Sommer has retained such influential outsiders as Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Senate Leader who now works for the large law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird. Daschle, a liberal from South Dakota, dropped out of the running to be Obama's Secretary of Health & Human Services after disclosures that he failed to pay taxes on perks given to him by a private client. He advised UnitedHealth in 2007 and 2008 and resumed that role this year. Daschle personally advocates a government-run competitor to private insurers. But he sells his expertise to UnitedHealth, which opposes any such public insurance plan. Among the services Daschle offers are tips on the personalities and policy proclivities of members of Congress he has known for decades.

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do remember Arthur Anderson was involved with the Enron crooks..

so many in our congress and Senate are all the same damn kind of crooks! Doesn't matter what party is in charge.