The top 10 recipients of campaign cash from seven health insurance industry PACs

I wrote yesterday about the passing of Be a Hero’s Ady Barkan and how he was a fierce advocate for a health care system that is fair and affordable and not run by profit-obsessed insurance companies. 

What I didn’t mention is that one of Ady’s most recent causes was taking on those insurance companies and how they are taking over the Medicare program, pillaging the Medicare Trust Fund, and denying and delaying care to juice their bottom lines. I was on a Zoom call with him and other advocates just days before he died. 

Ady knew that we were in an uphill battle but he also knew it was an absolutely essential one. As a champion of Medicare-for-All, Ady understood that unless we stop the growth of privately operated Medicare Advantage plans, we’ll soon be facing a truly worst-case scenario: Medicare Advantage-for-All, which is the real end goal of my former colleagues in the insurance business.

Private insurers–the big for-profit ones in particular–have now enrolled 51% of Medicare-eligible beneficiaries into their Medicare Advantage plans. Right now, they are spending massive amounts of taxpayer dollars to lure the rest of them into those plans. And it’s not just on TV. I’m ankle-deep in mail from all of the ones that operate in my neck of the woods. 

And those companies are spending large amounts of your tax dollars lobbying Congress and the administration and in campaign contributions. 

When I was at Cigna, my staff was responsible for doling out campaign cash to politicians we favored, Republicans and Democrats alike. We were always very much aware of which way the political winds were blowing and which members of Congress would likely be reliable allies when we needed them.

Since Republicans took control of the House in 2022, the political action committees of the big insurers have thrown more money at Republicans than Democrats, but the campaign contributions reflect the fact that the parties hold pretty slim majorities in both chambers. Several Democrats, especially those in high places, have also accepted big campaign checks from health insurers. 

I looked at the contributions made by the industry’s biggest PACs during the first six months of 2023 and found that while most went to Republicans in leadership positions a lot of cash also went to Democrats who wield influence on key committees. Consider those campaign contributions protection money–and your money. The industry’s goal is to keep those members perfectly content with a status quo that allows insurers to game the Medicare Advantage program in ways that enable them to collect billions of dollars every year in overpayments while also allowing them to deny coverage for medically necessary care, killing off an untold number of patients every year. And as you’ll see below, it doesn’t take a ton of money to buy that protection. 

Of the top 10 recipients of campaign cash from seven insurance industry PACs, all but two are Republicans–and all of them are in positions that enable them to keep the tax dollars flowing to private insurers. Here’s the list:

1. Jason Smith (R-MO), Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee: $30,000

2. Kevin Hern (R-OK), Member of the House Ways and Means Committee and its Subcommittee on Health: $25,000

3. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), House Speaker (now emeritus): $25,000

4. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), Chair of the Health Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Deputy Whip within the House Republican Conference: $25,000

5. Mike Crapo (R-ID), Ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee and member of the Budget Committee, Banking Committee and the Joint Committee on Taxation: $25,000

6. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee: $25,000

7. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), member of the House Appropriations Committee: $24,000

8. John Thune (R-SD), Senate Minority Whip and member of the Senate Finance Committee; Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee and the Agriculture Committee: $22,500

9. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Member of the Senate Finance Committee and the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees: $21,500

10. Katherine Clark (D-MA), House Minority Whip: $20,000

The insurance industry PACs also gave generously and almost evenly to the parties’ Congressional reelection committees. They gave $90,000 to both the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, $96,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and $81,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Notably, a total of $27,500 to the Congressional Black Caucus put the CBC in the top ten overall of recipients of health insurance industry campaign money. That didn’t surprise me. Health insurers have targeted Black Americans in particular with their aggressive advertising and PR campaigns. Several Congressional districts with large Black populations are among the most lucrative Medicare Advantage markets. 

Keep in mind that this is just a tally of the PAC contributions from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (of which Elevance/Anthem is a member), Centene, Cigna, CVS/Aetna, Humana, Molina and UnitedHealth Group. The companies’ executives and many employees also gave millions of dollars to various candidates during the first six months of this year. 

Insurers also benefit from the infamous revolving door on Capitol Hill. Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced earlier this week that he had hired Dan Ziegler, who most recently had served as a lobbyist at Williams and Jensen, as his new policy director. I know Williams and Jensen from my days at Cigna. Cigna was a client. As Punchbowl News reported, Ziegler’s clients included Elevance and several pharmaceutical companies. 

A few years ago, Marilyn Tavenner, who led the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Advocacy during part of the Obama Administration, left her government job to become CEO of AHIP, the health insurance industry’s biggest PR and lobbying outfit. And former Rep. Allison Schwartz, a moderate Democrat from Pennsylvania, left Congress to become CEO of the Better Medicare Alliance, an industry-funded group. Both AHIP and BMA spend millions of dollars every year lobbying Congress to protect and enhance Medicare Advantage. 

It’s important to keep in mind that Medicare Advantage isn’t the industry’s only cash cow needing protection. Three of the big companies–Cigna, CVS/Aetna and UnitedHealth–also own the three biggest pharmacy benefit managers. Between them, they control 80% of the PBM market. With Republicans and Democrats alike signing on to bills to reform the PBM business, you can be sure insurers are hoping their friends in Congress will be able to either kill those bills or shape them to the industry’s satisfaction.