SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow8317
All 535 members of Congress, and how much money they got from ISPs
In March, we published a story that showed contributions from the ISP industry to members of Congress who voted to repeal a landmark FCC privacy rule, opening the door to the sale of customer data. It was one of our most popular stories of the year, and many of you asked why we only published contributions to some members of Congress. Incidentally, every one of the 265 members who voted for the measure in March were Republicans. And many of those same members endorse the effort to end net neutrality.
But it's fair to want to see monetary influence across all of Congress. While it is clear that alignment with the ISPs is currently drawn along party lines, the industry's attempt to gain favor with lawmakers is not partisan. Entrenched telecommunications companies liberally spread money and attention to everyone who holds office. Sometimes that influence comes in the form of lavish parties with Olympic athletes and lobbyists, but consistently it comes in the form of contributions to campaigns.
It's impossible to quantify the overall influence of this powerful industry, but we can chart some of it.
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) leads the Senate with $2,554,784. Following him are Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) ($1,692,749), Roy Blunt (R-MO) ($1,283,416), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) ($1,119,163), Bill Nelson (D-FL) ($1,028,790), and Senate Minority Leader Charles E Schumer (D-NY) ($984,757).
In the House, Representative Greg Walden (R-OR02) received $1,605,986, followed by Reps. Fred Upton (R-MI06) ($1,590,125), Steny H Hoyer (D-MD05) ($1,429,710), Joe Barton (R-TX06) ($1,262,757), John M Shimkus (R-IL15) ($1,044,204), and James E Clyburn (D-SC06) ($1,030,550).
In the Senate, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) took the least from the telecom industry at just $40,219. In the House, Representative Warren Davidson (R-OH08) took just $15 (muffins? flowers? bus fare?) and the next guy up the list took $1,040.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by moondrake on Tuesday December 12 2017, @11:57AM (2 children)
In principle I agree with socialized health care. I live in Europe, and we have some of that here. And it works fine I think (and there is not much of the funny 2-tier healthcare system for people with money and people without money).
HOWEVER, at some point, my home country at the time started to force me into paying for its mandatory health-care system. Even although I already had a private insurance (I needed this because at the time I moved around quite a bit between countries and the mandatory insurance would not provide me with coverage I needed). In the end, I ended up officially immigrating from that country to avoid paying double.
So I can see where some of the criticism comes from. It would be nice to be able to opt out in case you have a valid alternative insurance. Of course, the problem is going to be that someone has to decide what kind of insurance is good enough.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Tuesday December 12 2017, @05:21PM
That's a terrible idea, because you end up splitting the insurance pool into two groups: rich and poor. The state-provided healthcare then is then only funded by the poor people and so, because a large subset of those will have no income and therefore no ability to pay towards it, will be underfunded, which will lead more people to opt out, until eventually you're left with only the people who don't pay any tax using it and no one paying for it.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 12 2017, @06:23PM
Nope, what should be available to you is separate insurance that only covers you when out of the country. Pretty sure you can get that, but I'm the price is probably rather high since traveling is a higher risk.