Signs of cronyism?: Orrin Hatch's medicare mess (part 2)

09/21/2011

 
There's no question Utah Senator Orrin Hatch has a close relationship to the pharmaceutical industry. This short video outlines some of the questionable connections between Hatch and prescription drug companies.

Here are a few points from the video (and others not included in the video):
Utah Senator Orrin Hatch
  • Senator Hatch prevented generic drugs from entering the market by "lead[ing] Senate efforts to give drug companies 12 years of exclusive rights to sell biotech drugs, rather than seven..." (USA Today)
  • Senator Hatch supported and voted in favor of the Medicare Part D legislation which added prescription drug coverage to Medicare.
  • The Medicare part D legislation does not permit the federal government to negotiate prices of drugs with the drug companies. That means drug companies get paid more per prescription than they do from other insurance companies. (AZ Star)
  • Senator Hatch's biggest campaign contributors are pharmaceutical/health product companies. He's received more than $1.7 million since 1998. (opensecrets)
  • Pharmaceutical companies have given at least $172,500 to a charitable organization Hatch helped start (and is still involved in), the Utah Families Foundation. "Under...law, companies lobbying Congress have to report donations to charities 'established, financed, maintained or controlled' by a member of Congress. Mr. Hatch helped start the organization and serves as a host at its fundraisers, but he’s not on its board of directors", so these contributions do not have to be reported. (Washington Times)
  • Hatch's son Scott is a lobbyist at Walker, Martin & Hatch. His firm "has been paid more than $1.5 million by pharmaceutical and medical companies since 2001, according to Senate lobbying records." (Washington Times)
  • Hatch "cast the only dissenting vote in the Senate in 2003 on an amendment that would reduce protections that the pharmaceutical companies used to block generic drugs from entering the market." (Washington Times)
  • "After using a complimentary Gulfstream executive jet provided by drugmaker Schering-Plough Corp. for his long-shot presidential campaign in 2000, he drafted legislation extending the drug company’s patent on the drug Claritin." (Washington Times)

There's more to Senator Orrin Hatch's Medicare mess. Click here for part 1 of the series.
 

State Senate map leaves two open seats

09/13/2011

 
The Utah State Legislature's redistricting committee approved maps for State Senate & House districts. You can view the Senate map here.

Two Open Seats
Based on the addresses listed on utahsenate.org, there will be two open seat districts. They are:
  • Cottonwood Heights area of Salt Lake County
  • Spanish Fork/Payson area of Utah County
Incumbents placed in same district
The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Pat Jones and Karen Morgan were mapped into the same district, but my research doesn't show this. The addresses listed on utahsenate.org places Pat Jones in the same district as Ross Romero and it has Karen Morgan in the same district as Wayne Niederhauser. I'm not sure who is correct here (the addresses could be wrong or I may have read the map wrong), so maybe someone can show me where I'm wrong. Again, here are the incumbents who were placed in the same district:
  •  Patricia Jones and Ross Romero
  • Karen Morgan and Wayne Niederhauser

The images below show the maps. The green circle means it is an open seat, the blue line means there is more than one incumbent living in that district.
 

95% of Orrin Hatch's campaign funds comes from outside Utah

09/12/2011

 
Picture
Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)
Only 4.9% of reported contributions to Orrin Hatch's campaign came from Utah according to the most recent FEC filings (2011-2012 cycle through 6/30/11).

Hatch's campaign received a total of $1,047,798 from individuals, with only $51,300 coming from Utahns (most of which came from Salt Lake City).

Senator Hatch also reported $1,022,549 from PACs and other committees.

Click here for the report.


 

Orrin Hatch's Medicare Mess (part 1)

09/07/2011

 
Senator Orrin Hatch, (R-Utah)
The following can be found on Orrin Hatch's campaign website under Entitlement Reform:

"Entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are the biggest driver of our national debt. They are already 60 percent of federal spending and that number is only going up. For far too long, the President and Congress have been intent to kick the can further down the road. Entitlement spending must be addressed before it sinks our national budget. Doing nothing is not an option." (emphasis added)

Senator Hatch is exactly right, but the inconvenient truth is he has been a major player in not only "kick[ing] the can down the road" but adding more unfunded liabilities to an already unsustainable program. He was one of the biggest advocates of the Medicare Part D legislation which passed through the Republican controlled Congress in 2003.  Senator Hatch fought for the legislation and voted for its passage.  Later, responding to criticism of the unfunded legislation Hatch said, "it was standard practice not to pay for things," and defended his vote by saying it "has done a lot of good."
The truth is this legislation has done a lot of bad. We simply cannot afford this kind of program. Here's a look at the cost of the Medicare Part D program Senator Hatch voted for (from cms.gov report):
  • Projected net expenditures from 2009-2018 is $727 BILLION.
  • The net present value (NPV) of future medicare part D expenditures is $20.3 TRILLION. Yes, that's trillion with a T.
  • That puts the NPV of future Medicare Part D expenditures at a whopping 1.5% of the NPV of future GDP! As a comparison, the entire United States agriculture sector is only 1.1% of GDP.

There's more to Senator Orrin Hatch's Medicare mess. Click here for part 2 of the series.