Republican corruption by the numbers, Part 1: Health care

The House Democrats have prepared a major report on Republican congressional corruption: America for Sale: The Cost of Republican Corruption. The report was formally released by the ranking member of the House Rules Committee, Rep. Louise Slaughter. You can download the .pdf here.

From the executive summary:

The United States Government used to belong to the people. Now it belongs to the highest bidders with the best Republican political connections. Congress is no longer a place where legislators work to make sure the government acts in the people's interest and uses taxpayers' dollars wisely. Instead, it has become a place where the Republican representatives who have the power to set Congress' agenda work to re-distribute as many of those taxpayers' dollars as possible to their special-interest friends in a massive "pay to play" scheme. It has become a place where the insurance and drug companies write our health care legislation, and the oil and mining industries write our energy policy.

For any news junkie, there's very little here that you won't already have heard about sometime during the last 5 years. What's stunning, though, is to see it lined up, end to end, one piece of sleaze after another.

This has it all, including the shady deals, the blocked amendments, the secret task forces, the hidden amendments, the sweetheart deals, the money changing hands, the golf games, the hookers, the embezzlers, and the government-subsidized titty bar

But for those who don't want to face down this 118-page pdf document in its entirety (as a frame of reference, though, my paperback copy of Advise and Consent is 760 pages long), p3 is happy to present the first installment of the Republican Corruption Index: Health Care.

6.2 million

Number of eligible senior citizens overcharged or turned away at pharmacies because their names weren't transferred into the privately-administered Medicare "Part D" system.
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$150 million

State funds allocated by California to pay for prescription coverage for Californians who lost coverage under the privatized "Part D" plan.
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1

Number of the total 59 proposed amendments to the Republican-controlled House version of the Medicare "reform" bill that didn't get ruled "out of order."
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Less than 1

Number of days the Republican-controlled House allowed for debate on the entire Medicare "reform" bill.
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$13 billion

Amount Goldman Sachs predicted that the Medicare "reform" bill would increase profits annually in the pharmaceutical industry. (Another independent analyst put the figure at $139 billion over the next 8 years.)
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$2 million

Annual salary of former Commerce Committee Chair, Republican Billy Tauzin, responsible for writing the Medicare "reform" legislation, after he became a top lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry.
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$134 billion

Difference between the cost of the Medicare "reform," as sold to Congress by the Bush Administration, and the actual projected cost, a figure known to the chief administration actuary who was threatened with firing if he didn't help conceal the higher-but-accurate figure from Congress.
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You can read Part 2, on energy policy, here; Part 3, on national security, here; Part 4, on employment and the economy, here; and Part 5, on education, here.