Pharma has utterly captured the California state legislature, as this article in the Desert Sun makes clear. The question we should all ask is this: who owns my representative, my state government?
From the article:
“Pan, a Sacramento pediatrician and chair of the Senate Health Committee, took in at least $432,000 from health care interests during the 2017-18 election cycle. That amounts to 40 percent of the money in both his personal campaign account and a ballot measure committee he formed called Californians Building a Healthy Future.
Wood, a dentist and the Assembly Health Committee chairman, accepted at least $365,000 from the health care sector and advocates, nearly 38 percent of the total money in his personal campaign account and his Committee to Improve the Quality of Life in California.
Health care unions and associations representing doctors, dentists, nurses and other health care workers were the biggest contributors: $102,600 to Pan and $136,350 to Wood. Individual doctors and other health care workers gave Pan $51,070 and Wood $2,510.
The drug industry also gave generously with $97,800 to Pan and $42,000 to Wood. HMOs and insurance plans gave $81,350 to Pan and $76,520 to Wood, and hospitals or health care facilities gave $52,818 to Pan and $45,800 to Wood, according to the latest filings.”
Never underestimate the capacity of a politician to place their integrity, and their constituents’ futures, on the auction block in exchange for election victories, power, and influence.
