King of Corrupt Corporate Capitalism?
Posted on the 19 November 2011 by Mikeb302000
Michele Bachmann has made the self-serving attack on Rick Perry that he engages in rampant cronyism, and pay for play, where an individual or a corporation pays off a politician for special favors, legislation or contracts paid by state money. Perry is reputed to be more involved than even the usual amount of such activity.
This appears to substantiate those accusations. I don't find Perry's denials of being influenced, which amounts to bribery, as credible. If a person would take money for favors, they would as easily lie about it.
From MSNBC.com and the Center for Public Integrity:
HPV vaccine isn't the only procedure Rick Perry has mandated
iWatch News from the Center for Public Integrity
Texas
Gov. Rick Perry has taken some heat from his fellow Republican
presidential candidates for having signed a controversial executive
order that mandated vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV) for sixth-grade girls in 2007, an order the Legislature later overturned.
It
turns out that isn't the only medical procedure Perry has ordered. Two
years later, in 2009, Perry quietly signed a health insurance mandate
that some experts say could waste vast sums of money and provide little
medical benefit, according to the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), a
nonprofit investigative group:
The 2009 measure, the Texas Heart Attack Prevention Bill, requires
insurance companies to pay for CT scans and ultrasound tests that can
detect heart disease. The companies must reimburse middle-aged and
elderly citizens up to $200 for these tests, if they are either diabetic
or at intermediate or higher risk of developing cardiovascular illness.
They need not have any actual heart problems.
Nearly 2.4 million Texans fall into this group, estimates Dr. Amit
Khera, a professor at Texas' Southwestern Medical Center. If one fourth
of them had the appropriate insurance and took advantage of the benefit
only once, insurance companies would be required to spend $120 million.
There is no data on how many people have actually used the benefit.
Yet there is little evidence that the tests can improve people's
health, some experts say, and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force,
an independent panel of health experts, does not recommend the tests for
routine screening.
CPI reports that the measure was promoted by a medical
group with a history of ties to Pfizer Inc., which makes the
cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor. Campaign finance reports show that
Perry received more money from Pfizer than any other political candidate
nationwide over the last six years.
CPI said a spokesman for
Perry declined to address the issues raised by Pfizer's support, but he
has previously dismissed assertions that he solicited funds from donors
who sought special benefits as "ridiculous."
You can read the full iWatch News report here.
iWatch News is the website of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit organization dedicated to investigative journalism.