I’ve been meaning to post this article from OpenSecrets.org that sheds light on the claim that either Obamacare or its twin, Romneycare, somehow “get tough” on insurance companies:
Health Insurance Industry Opens Check Books for Mitt Romney, Barack Obama
Research by the Center for Responsive Politics shows that President Barack Obama and his GOP rival Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, are the only two presidential candidates to have raised more than $40,000 from the health insurance industry so far this election cycle…
Both men have favored health care policies that include an individual mandate for people to purchase private insurance plans. Romney did so as governor of Massachusetts, and Obama did so as part of the health care reform package he signed into law last year…
Such mandates are supported by the insurance industry, which stand to benefit from increased customers as well as from government subsidies that help enroll people who could not otherwise afford insurance.
Romney, in fact, has received more than five times as much money from the health insurance industry than any other GOP presidential candidate, according to the Center’s research.
That should weigh on the minds of states that are considering whether to create the health insurance “exchanges” that will implement Obamacare’s individual mandate and subsidies for insurance companies.