Who Is Getting Rich Off the Secret Health-Care Overhaul?

A small group of people knows what the public doesn’t, and that’s ripe for scandal.

By George Zornick

One of the biggest scandals in American politics right now is that 13 Senate Republicans are developing a health-care bill that will impact one-sixth of the economy and the livelihoods of millions of Americans, and nobody knows the details. Republican senators outside that working group don’t know anything, much less their Democratic colleagues. There have been no public hearings, markups, or debates of any kind.

This has also created conditions for a spate of smaller, more specific scandals. There is a huge gap between what a very small number of people know about the fate of US health care, and what the public—and particularly the investing public—knows.

“The health-care legislation is ripe for stock-trading activity, political-intelligence work, and even insider-trading information,” said Craig Holman, government-affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen. “And when you take a look at the Republican health-care bill, which is all being negotiated in secret, these guys—and not only the members of Congress, but the staff who are working on it—have an ideal opportunity to cash in themselves, or even provide information others to handle stock-trading activity.”

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https://www.thenation.com/article/who-is-getting-rich-off-the-secret-health-care-overhaul/