Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

John Kerry reporting for duty!

By

Health Sector Contributions to Members of the 111th Congress, 1989-2009*

Name Office State Health Sector** Health Insurance Pharma Health Pros Hospitals Nursing Homes
Obama, Barack P IL $20,144,316 $1,552,981 $2,132,573 $12,108,983 $2,881,638 $244,190
McCain, John S AZ $9,027,044 $736,884 $902,915 $6,325,601 $658,250 $152,950
Kerry, John S MA $8,344,060 $687,434 $887,043 $4,717,648 $1,306,997 $169,190
Specter, Arlen S PA $4,521,093 $382,228 $1,238,916 $1,738,490 $795,928 $92,100
Baucus, Max S MT $3,902,881 $675,349 $1,099,605 $1,401,776 $421,542 $232,949

But is there another reason you put your time and efforts into an amendment to reduce tax revenue to fund this bill – the tax liability of medical device manufacturers – instead of building a sixty member caucus in support of the public option and medicare expansion, including your (and our) 2004 V.P. candidate Joe Lieberman who up until last week supported Medicare expansion?  

Could it have anything to do with your priorities including some very personal interests? I’m not the first to say so.  Check out this report from liberal talk radio Air America:

“Congressional Stock Portfolios Helped By Their Votes“ Nov 23, 2009

The Washington Post article titled “Policy, portfolios, and the investor lawmaker” treats a proposed tax on medical device firms as a case study in investments affecting political stances. When Democratic Senator John Kerry and Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner agree on something, there is probably more going on than political dogma.

Lo and behold, both men have millions of dollars in family wealth invested in the firms that would be taxed under the Senate Finance Committee’s health care bill. While both come from states that are havens for medical device companies and they claim that their positions have to do with their constituencies, stories like this don’t look good.

And there you have it!  I still haven’t been able to determine whether this amendment was part of the manager’s amendment or was voted on earlier this month.

“Senate amendment would alter medical device tax“, December 14, 2009

The amendment is being sponsored by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), John Kerry (D-Mass.)…

Under the proposed amendment, companies reporting less than $100 million in yearly revenues would be exempt from the tax. Companies reporting between $100 million and $150 million would pay an excise tax on 50 percent of their revenues; the rate for companies with more than $150 million in annual sales would be 100 percent. If approved, the amendment would also make the excise tax tax-deductible.

While John Kerry was unable to help deliver 60 votes whether from Lieberman or moderate members of the Republican caucus, he was able to deliver for his corporate campaign donors, medical device manufacturers, and his own investment portfolio,  just not his constituents.  

In other news: Kerry, Lieberman, Graham Release Framework on Climate Change – December 10, 2009

In our bonus coverage, John Kerry breaks out the opposition research against Howard Dean who thinks the Senate bill should be fixed before it is passed.  For the record, Dean think the house produced a good bill.


John Kerry Attacks Howard Dean for Fun and Profit

By: Jane Hamsher Saturday December 19, 2009 7:45 am

They’re really bringing out everyone to pile on. Now it’s John Kerry’s turn. Love the triangulation against “liberals”:

Some of our liberal friends have suggested we should kill the health care reform bill because it doesn’t have a public option.

No actually Howard Dean said “kill the SENATE bill.” There are two houses of Congress last time I checked. One has passed a bill, the other hasn’t. The one that’s not called the SENATE seems to be an irrelevant footnote.

This week, for example, Howard Dean wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that real health care reform needed a public option that would ‘…give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage.’ I was surprised to read that because back in 1993, then-Governor Howard Dean called Medicare ‘…one of the worst federal programs ever and a living advertisement for why the federal government should never administer a national health care program.’

And this relates to “giving all Americans a meaningful choice” how, exactly? Okay, not at all, it’s just a shot at Howard Dean.

[…]

When the Dorgan Amendment on reimportation of prescription drugs failed 51-48 the other day, Kerry was one of the Democrats who voted “nay.” He tried to give himself cover by voting “yea” on the Lautenberg “poison pill” amendment that neutered the Dorgan amendment.

Don’t worry, Senator Kerry. No matter how shitty this bill gets, nobody thinks you’re walking anywhere.

(link to original article at firedoglake)

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  1. By Michael O’Brien – 12/19/09 01:55 PM ET
    The Hill | link

    “…A leading women’s group called on senators on Saturday to defeat its healthcare reform bill….The leader of the National Organization for Women (NOW) excoriated the language in the health bill curtailing federal support for insurance plan covering abortions, which was inserted to win the 60th vote of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.)….”The so-called health care reform bill now before the Senate, with the addition of Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Manager’s Amendment, amounts to a health insurance bill for half the population and a sweeping anti-abortion law for the rest of us,” NOW President Terry O’Neill said in a statement….”

    <

    p>who sees this coming?
    …”I am a strong supporter of the public option choice  and I’ve fought to see it included. But if it cannot be included, I’m not willing to walk away.”  

  2. Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) demagoguery lumps Republican Senators and the anti-healthcare teabaggers in with progressives ignoring that fact the GOP and anti-healthcare teabaggers don’t want a bill and progressives want a good bill with a public option and Medicare expansion.  

    <

    p>To buy into Kerry’s argument, you’d have to ignore that Governor Dean has been one of the people working for health care reform for decades, almost exclusively over the last year for DFA and advocating for effective reform.  

    <

    p>

    Mr. President, on an issue like health care, which has been something dozens of our colleagues have worked on for years and years, an issue that’s enormously important to our country and to our constituents, I have to acknowledge that we’ve too often accepted a debate that misses the big picture. Too many of us are closing our eyes to what we need to do – what we need to do now – to fix a health care system that we acknowledge values profits over people, a health care system that favors those who can buy over those who are in need. What’s worse – some of those who oppose reforming our health care system are relying on crude but effective demagoguery – emotionally laden buzzwords, tried and tested in focus groups and funded with millions of dollars from the insurance industry – to discourage us from moving even one step forward. It seems to have won some alarming traction: some of the staunchest advocates of health care reform – even among progressives- seem ready to toss in the towel just because the bill we’re debating is not all they want it to be. Well, that is exactly what the opponents of this bill would like you to do – throw your hands up in frustration and say, as Howard Dean said yesterday – let’s “kill the bill” and start all over. Or as Keith Olbermann said Wednesday night – “this is not health, this is not care, this is certainly not reform.” I can promise you, if we follow that kind of advice and give up now, just because the bill is not all we want it to be, we surrender the very reforms that people have spent their lives working for, reforms that the Democratic Party has been proposing for decades, reforms that many of us in the Senate today ran on and promised we would work together to achieve.

    • By: Jon Walker Sunday December 20, 2009 5:25 am

      There is a very insidious myth right now that there is a large group of progressive leaders who want to “kill” health care reform in its entirety. While there might be some progressive leaders out there who have advocated for this position, I have yet to hear from them. What I have heard from people like Howard Dean, Markos Moulitsas, Keith Olbermann, Jane Hamsher, etc… is that they simply want to kill the current version of the Senate bill. None of them, to my knowledge, have advocated ending all efforts to pass a health care reform bill. I believe each and every one of them have advocated for simply passing a different bill through different means. Do not heed those who are working to create a false dynamic where the only two options are passing this horrible Senate bill or passing nothing at all. The idea that there is a large group of progressive leaders trying to kill health care reform is a red herring. read more

      • You realizes if the Senate bill is killed there won’t be another bill? You realize that would kill health care reform? For generations?  

        • …they simply want to kill the current version of the Senate bill. None of them, to my knowledge, have advocated ending all efforts to pass a health care reform bill.

          <

          p>Who (which progressives) have you heard advocate ending all efforts to pass a health care reform bill?

  3. I was doing research because Coakley supporters were blasting Capuano for receiving $50,000 from PMA. Kerry gets plenty from the banking industry too. Yet this rarely gets mentioned.  Capuano was getting blasted for $50,000. Kerry gets a free ride for hundred of millions of dollars in contributions from corporations that we are currently trying to regulate, with seemingly great difficulty.  Gee, I wonder why.

    • Do those include funds McCain and Kerry received while running for President, or are they just donations received for Senate campaigns?

      <

      p>If they include the Presidential totals, then it is really f-ing terrifying how much more Obama received from those industries during one Senate campaign and one Presidential campaign than Kerry and McCain have received from 89-09 for all of their campaigns.  

      <

      p>I still am holding out hope that Obama is not a pure corporate Democrat, even though he has surrounded himself with such and seems to be advocating policies reflecting that view.

  4. Kerry spoke in the well of the Senate this week:

    What we are trying to do here is not easy. It wasn’t easy for Franklin Roosevelt when he tried, it wasn’t easy for Harry Truman when he tried, it wasn’t easy for Bill Clinton when he tried. But you don’t sound the retreat, especially when you are so close to achieving many of your objectives.

    Of course people on the left didn’t demand a retreat, they demanded another attack rather than just declaring success and moving on.  As a result, I much prefer this one:

    What? Over? Did you say over? Nothing is over until we decide it is.  Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? HELL NO!  It ain’t over now.  ‘Cause when he going get’s tough . . . . . . the tough get going. Who’s with me?

  5. He ran with Gore in 2000, not Kerry in 2004.  

    <

    p>Surely you didn’t expect principle and honor from our now senior senator.  Words he lives by: “I wish to congratulate you on your new business, and I know you’ll do very well; and good luck to you — as best as your interests don’t conflict with my interests.”

  6. and legal immunity for big pharma should they like, like, not really test their vaccines properly.
    A Skull Above Any Other!

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