"Corporatocracy" is the term Allison Kilkenny used in an essay today to describe our current state of federal governing. Dovetailing nicely with yesterday's post on health care lobbyists, Ms. Kilkenny notes that something on the order of $1.4M a day (yes, you read that correctly - that's 1.4 MILLION dollars PER DAY) is being spent by large health care companies to lobby Congress during these health care reform debates.
So, while poll after poll presents overwhelming evidence that Americans want a public option included in the reform, its reasonably safe to assume that the companies pouring all that money into Congress will get the health care reform that they prefer instead.
In her article, Ms. Kilkenny recalls that Canada took steps to curb lobbyists influence with their 2008 Federal Accountability Act. The act includes provisions for documenting arranged meetings between lobbyists and government officials, and imposes stiff monetary penalties for violations of the Act.
No such law exists here. As the chart yesterday indicated, health care companies know this is crunch time and are pulling out all the stops to guarantee an outcome that's favorable to them and their stockholders. And as the chart also made clear, this isn't a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. It's a Congressional issue. It needs to be fixed.
Maybe there's something to be gained here by recalling the definition of republic: : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law. (My emphasis and italics)
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