When Bob Dole, Bill Frist, Tommy Thompson, and Louis Sullivan weighed in on health care reform, they weren't necessarily motivated by pure public-spiritedness. Tim Carney reports:
Former Republican Health and Human Services Secretaries Louis Sullivan and Tommy Thompson, along with former Senate Majority Leaders Bill Frist (a doctor) and Bob Dole, received plaudits in the president's weekly radio address for exhibiting "the spirit of national purpose" and for understanding "that health insurance reform isn't a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, but an American issue that demands a solution."
Media outlets dutifully carried the Democratic story line: Four important Republicans are backing Obama, but GOP lawmakers remain in lockstep for partisan political readings.
Obama, along with ABC News, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press and nearly everyone who reported on the GOP support for Obamacare, left out the salient detail that these pro-"reform" Republicans are lobbyists, consultants and directors for the drug companies, hospitals and other health care corporations that stand to profit from Obama's reform.
Dole, for example, does health care lobbying for Alston & Bird, whose clients include drug makers, hospitals, insurance companies, and medical trade associations. For more details, go here.
