[Cross-posted from the ProgressMass blog. Like ProgressMass on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.]
“Now, I don’t know anybody who’s hired by an insurance company that was actually working for the victims.” –Republican Scott Brown, 9/21/12
Republican Scott Brown has been working very hard to misrepresent the role that his Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren, played in a lawsuit involving Travelers Insurance. While Brown’s negative attacks are misleading, he does raise a provocative point: insurance companies (and, well, any company or special interest) will allocate their resources where they think it will do the most good to benefit their goals. Of course, in the case of insurance companies, the goal is maximizing profit.
As such, insurance companies will allocate resources to benefit their own bottom line. Given that, it seems like an appropriate time to ask the question:
Who’s Winning the Big Insurance Primary?
According to OpenSecrets.org, the Insurance industry represents the fifth largest source of campaign funds for Republican Scott Brown. Insurance industry sources have contributed $755,740 – over three-quarters of a million dollars – to Republican Scott Brown. Notably, that figure includes a $9,000 contribution to Brown from the Political Action Committee of none other than Travelers. Travelers isn’t alone. Brown has taken campaign contributions from the PACs of over 40 different Insurance industry sources.
Very clearly, Big Insurance is a huge fan of Republican Scott Brown. (He’s not just Wall Street’s favorite!) What about Democratic nominee Elizabeth Warren? What has she received in campaign contributions from Insurance industry sources? Well, “Insurance” doesn’t even make the list of Warren’s top twenty sources of campaign contributions. As such, ProgressMass had to contact The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), which runs OpenSecrets.org, in order to get Warren’s total. The figure that CRP replied with was just $34,475, or just under 4.6% of Brown’s total take.
In short, Republican Scott Brown has taken from Big Insurance about twenty-two times what Democrat Elizabeth Warren has received.
Big Insurance has made it abundantly clear that they would prefer to “hire” Republican Scott Brown to continue serving in the U.S. Senate, rather than have consumer protection advocate Elizabeth Warren replace him. What was it again that Brown said about insurance company hiring?
Now, I don’t know anybody who’s hired by an insurance company that was actually working for the victims.
Just as with Wall Street and Big Oil, Big Insurance is voting with its dollars for Republican Scott Brown. Once again, we see the big corporations and special interests lining up behind Republican Scott Brown, as he wins the Big Insurance Primary in a landslide.
In the meantime, as Republican Scott Brown desperately proceeds with his misleading negative attacks, you can help hold Brown accountable. Click on the below graphic to share it on your Facebook Wall and spread the truth about Republican Scott Brown siding with big business over Middle Class Massachusetts.
While the $9K given to Scott Brown by Travelers remains a distraction from the egregiousness of his lies about Elizabeth Warren, the staggering difference between insurance industry giving for the two candidates should be front-and-center.
Scott Brown is working for the insurance industry. Elizabeth Warren is not.
I don’t see it as a distraction. It could be used as the final nail.
Hit hard on the way he’s lied about the case, then say he’s the one getting 95% of the contributions from insurance companies in this race. Oh, by the way, that includes 9 grand from Travelers itself, so obviously Travelers doesn’t think Elizabeth Warren is its preferred candidate for Senator.
Are you opposed to insurance, such that the political contributions of this noxious, nefarious business must be monitored to sully the reputations of people associated with it?
Or are we simply accepting his BS quote from 9/21 as true?
If one (Brown) is going to take the stance that benefiting insurance companies by definition doesn’t benefit insurance customers, then who the insurance industry likes better is a completely salient issue making the original point problematic for Brown.
One can point this out without hypocrisy while holding that the point is wrong in the first place.
There are issues with the insurance industry. See AIG/financial collapse and healthcare.
But it’s perfectly fair to evaluate Brown by his own formulation. He basically says “Hey folks, hey union members, when did you ever hear of someone hired by an insurance company who’s actually working for the victims?” It’s legitimate to ask whether he applies that principle to himself, since it’s so clear the insurance industry is quite eager to hire Scott Brown to be U.S. Senator from Massachusetts for the next six years.