Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Photo by Luke Thomas
By David Sirota, OpenLeft
September 12, 2009
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the first time yesterday suggested she may be backing off her support of the public option – the government-run health plan that the private insurance industry is desperately trying to kill. According to CNN, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “said they would support any provision that increases competition and accessibility for health insurance – whether or not it is the public option favored by most Democrats.”
This announcement came just hours before Steve Elmendorf, a registered UnitedHealth lobbyist and the head of UnitedHealth’s lobbying firm Elmendorf Strategies, blasted this email invitation throughout Washington, D.C. I just happened to get my hands on a copy of the invitation from a source – check it out:
From: Steve Elmendorf [mailto:steve@elmendorfstrategies.com]
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 8:31 AM
Subject: event with Speaker Pelosi at my home
You are cordially invited to a reception with
Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi
Thursday, September 24, 2009
6:30pm ~ 8:00pm
At the home of
Steve Elmendorf
2301 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apt. 7B
Washington, D.C.
$5,000 PAC
$2,400 Individual
To RSVP or for additional information please contact
Carmela Clendening at (202) 485-3508 or clendening@dccc.org
Steve Elmendorf
ELMENDORF STRATEGIES
GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS SOLUTIONS
900 7th Street NW Suite 750 Washington DC 20001
(202) 737-1655
Again, Elmendorf is a registered lobbyist for UnitedHealth, and his firm’s website brags about its work for UnitedHealth on its website.
The sequencing here is important: Pelosi makes her announcement and then just hours later, the fundraising invitation goes out. Coincidental? I’m guessing no – these things rarely ever are.
I wrote a book a few years ago called Hostile Takeover whose premise was that corruption and legalized bribery has become so widespread that nobody in Washington even tries to hide it. This is about as good an example of that truism as I’ve ever seen.
The Hunger Site
September 12, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Could it be the Obama administration is going to let United-Health run Medicaid.
They already gave a multibillion dollar deal to Big Pharm.
September 12, 2009 at 1:22 pm
FOLLOW THE MONEY.
We know that a significant portion of Pelosi’s ill-gotten gains derive directly or indirectly from the Miltary Industrial Complex. Anyone know about their ties to the Medical Industrial Complex.