Aug 29, 2007 
From Derrick Jackson’s column in today’s Boston Globe:
The hold of the healthcare industry on the top candidates is already apparent. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the top recipient of campaign contributions so far from the pharmaceutical and health products industry is Republican Mitt Romney ($228,260). But the next two are Democrats Barack Obama ($161,124) and Hillary Clinton ($146,000). The top recipient of contributions from health professionals is Clinton ($990,611). Romney is second at $806,837, and Obama third at $748,637.
The top recipient of cash from the insurance industry, which includes health insurers, is another Democrat, Connecticut’s Christopher Dodd, at $605,950. Romney and Republican Rudolph Giuliani are second and third, with Clinton and Obama fourth and fifth. Even though Obama is in fifth place, he still has collected $269,750 from insurance companies.
In a category that is relatively small in money thus far, but huge in terms of healthcare morality, Democratic presidential candidates occupy four of the top six spots in receiving money from death-dealing tobacco companies. After Giuliani’s $69,500 from tobacco companies, Dodd has received $45,400, Clinton $32,300, Romney $31,400, Obama $7,885, and Democrat Joe Biden, $4,000.
No surprise:
The top recipient from lobbyists by far is Clinton at $406,300. She is still so badly smoldering from the torching of her healthcare efforts as first lady that she recently asserted to the National Association of Black Journalists, “I have never advocated socialized medicine. That has been a right-wing attack on me for 15 years.”
One of the several reasons I don’t want Senator Clinton to be the nominee is that she is in a uniquely weak position to work for real healthcare reform.
Jackson’s column focuses on Dennis Kucinich, who is the only candidate advocating a universal, single-payer, not-for-profit healthcare system. And, of course, Kucinich will not be the nominee. John Edwards, who has a shot at the ticket and who has proposed a healthcare plan I don’t like, at least doesn’t seem to be in the health insurance industry’s pocket.
See also this editorial in today’s New York Times.
