The firm that houses two of the three former Senate majority leaders who proposed a comprehensive health care compromise bill on Wednesday has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby on behalf of key players in the health care industry. In addition, the company that presented those findings, the Bipartisan Policy Center, counts as a major fundraiser one of the country's largest pharmaceutical companies. See: Daschle's Firm And Group Have Ties To Private Health Care Industry The Bipartisan Policy Center, for instance, lists the pharmaceutical company Schering-Plough as a "substantial contributor" on its 990 form. A spokesperson for BPC, Eileen McMenamin, dismissed the notion that Schering-Plough -- which is a member of the anti-public-option Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) -- played any role in crafting the group's health care proposal.
The company did not have "unique access to or influence over any of our projects" McMenamim said. They were "one of 16 members of our Leaders' Council, which provides 10% of the total organization's funding."
SO WHO DID FUND THE GROUP?
"The entire funding for the Leaders' Project on the State of American Health Care (which is our health care project that released the report yesterday)," said McMenamin, "came from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation," (RWJF).
That's right... the group claims it was not influenced by the healthcare industry because all of its funding came from the RWJF, which is entirely funded by Johnson & Johnson (also a member of PhRMA). The RWJF Board of Trustees is stacked with former J&J executives and former members of J&J's Board of Directors.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation desn't turn over one cent to any group, unless it will in some way benefit the business of Johnson & Johnson.
