Heather Steans Gets New Contribution from Health Insurance Company

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, January 12, 2010 Steans’ Health Care “Reform” earns her more money from Heath Insurance Companies “We’ve seen at the national level that health insurance companies use their political contributions to buy influence and derail real reform. What kind of “reform” did Sen. Steans push through that earned her $1,500 more from a major health insurance company?” -Jim Madigan CHICAGO: On Friday, January 7th, Heather Steans received yet another big contribution from Humana PAC. Steans reported accepting $1,500 from the political committee funded by Humana health insurance. Steans accepted the health insurance money just one day after a public forum in which she chastised some of her Senate colleagues for “having a lot of connections to the insurance industry.” During the January 6th forum, Steans also touted her sponsorship of recently passed health insurance regulation (H.B. 3923), saying that health insurance companies “are not happy at all with the bill we pushed through” and “fought against us tooth and nail the entire time.” Steans’ challenger for the Democratic nomination for 7th District State Senate, Jim Madigan responded to Steans today: “We’ve seen at the national level that health insurance companies use their political contributions to buy influence and derail real reform. What kind of “reform” did Sen. Steans accomplish that earned her $1,500 more from a major health insurance company?” Steans admitted during the candidate forum that it was she who decided to invite health insurance CEOs to play a role in “revising” the bill. “I involved the head of the insurance companies in the negotiation,” Steans said at the candidate forum. Democrats in the Illinois House passed H.B. 3923 by a partisan vote of 62-45 on April 3, 2009. The bill underwent significant changes in the Illinois Senate with Steans as its sponsor. The final bill Steans negotiated with the health insurance companies received the vote of nearly all Republicans in both House and Senate. “I wonder what reform was left on the table in order to ensure that the campaign cash would keep flowing from insurance companies?” remarked Madigan. “Leadership requires a willingness to stand up and say no when deep pocket donors come calling to stifle reform. I have not and will not take a cent from health insurance companies because I know we will never get real reform if legislators are beholden to them.” Madigan repeated his support of a universal, single payer health care system for the United States. “Like other industrialized nations, we need to move away from our system of health insurance toward a system of health care.” CONTACT: Lauren Peters, Campaign Manager Jim Madigan for State Senate 773.431.9658 Leave a Comment * Conservative T-Shirts * Follow CNB on Twitter * RSS Feed