That’s why, analysts say, health care industry lobbyists have showered them with more campaign cash on average than other senators this year, in an attempt to influence the outcome.<\/font><\/p>\n Three Republican and three Democratic senators in the group, all of them members of the Senate Finance Committee, received an average of $74,600 from health industry lobbyists, according to The Chronicle’s analysis of records through June. <\/font><\/p>\n That is about 25 percent more than the average of $59,632 in such donations that the gang’s other Senate colleagues raked in from lobbyists for the pharmaceutical, hospital, insurance and nursing home industries, according to the analysis, which was based on records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit watchdog group.<\/font><\/p>\n "Money buys access<\/strong>," said Henry Brady, a professor of public policy and dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley\u2026.<\/font><\/p>\n …Sen. Chuck Grassley<\/font><\/strong>, R-Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee who is seen as key to influencing other conservatives, received the most this year – $223,600<\/font><\/strong>. Committee chair Sen. Max Baucus<\/strong>, D-Mont., was second with $141,000<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Inserted from <San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>><\/p>\n Is it any wonder that Snake-in-the Grassley and Bought Baucus are willing to sabotage authentic reform? They are the best Senators money can buy. Other than the public option, what changes do you think are needed to turn BARF into something palatable?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scheduled for markup on Tuesday, the Baucus Anti Reforming Fixes act, BARF for short, needs a major overhaul, including the inclusion of a public option. Over 550 amendments are already scheduled for discussion. But why does BARF stink so bad? The answer is completely clear. The bipartisan "gang of six" senators who helped craft the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Senate-corruption\"](\"http:\/\/s217.photobucket.com\/albums\/cc83\/TomCat1948or2\/Blog%202009\/WhyBARFStinks_264B\/Senatecorruption.jpg\" "\\"Senate-corruption\\"")
<\/a> The bipartisan "gang of six" senators who helped craft the health care reform bill going before a key Senate committee Tuesday represent less than 3 percent<\/strong> of the U.S. population – but they hold a lot of power at a crucial policy-shaping moment in Congress.<\/font><\/p>\n