Health Insurers Are Backing Republicans With Campaign Donations By 8:1 Margin [View All]

[jefferson_dem]

Maybe the industry is playing a bit of three-dimensional chess of their own - pretending to not back the party who engineered passage of their supposedly awesome corporate windfall. :crazy:

Health Insurers Are Backing Republicans With Campaign Donations By 8:1 Margin

Insurers became the target of the White House’s attacks in the closing days of the health reform debate and so perhaps it’s no surprise that they’re “backing Republicans with campaign donations by an 8-to- 1 margin, favoring the party that’s promised to repeal President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul if it wins back Congress.” Bloomberg’s Drew Armstrong has the scoop:

WellPoint, along with Coventry Health Care Inc. and Humana Inc., gave Republican candidates $315,000 from May through July, according to U.S. Federal Election Commission records. That compares with $41,000 given to Democrats by the three companies as the parties near November elections that will determine who controls the U.S. House and Senate next year.

While Republicans aren’t likely to win the large majorities necessary to override a presidential veto and repeal the health law Obama signed in March, they may be able to slow or stall its implementation, said James Morone, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. At the same time, the turn to strongly favor Republicans may anger Democrats who had been receptive to insurers’ concerns, he said.

The Wonk Room explains why insurers are donating to Republicans, the party devoted to repealing the individual health insurance mandate.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/08/27/insurers-gop/