40 Republicans Who Voted For Obamacare Repeal Own Millions In Health Care Stock
Republicans who voted for Obamacare repeal bill have massive financial interests in health care companies.
According to a new report by The Daily Beast, forty House Republicans who cast votes to repeal Obamacare have substantial personal financial interest in health care companies that stand to benefit from the Republican bill.
The report notes that forty Republicans, who all voted for the GOP bill, owned shares in health care companies valued at least $23 million and possibly as much as $39 million according to financial disclosure reports.
The Republican lawmakers, who cast votes to reshape the health care industry, own vast stock holdings in pharmaceutical companies and medical device companies. “Republicans owned between $1.3 million and $4.9 million worth of stock in Abbott Labs, Johnson and Johnson, and 3M, three of the country’s largest medical-device manufacturers. They also owned between $2.7 million and $5.5 million in pharmaceutical giants Merck, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer, and Shire,” The Daily Beast reported.
The ownership of tens of millions of dollars in health care stock represents massive conflicts of interest for the Republicans who voted on a bill that the Congressional Budget Office says will take insurance away from 24 million.
As The Daily Beast notes, “The AHCA would benefit these companies by eliminating billions of dollars in taxes and fees on pharmaceutical and medical-device manufacturers—a provision of the bill that doesn’t reflect a violation of ethics rules because it will have a broad effect across health care industries, according to ethics experts.”
The report highlights Congressman MacArthur “who held between $834,000 and $2.3 million in health care investments in 2015. MacArthur made between $142,000 and $472,000 in capital gains and dividends on those investments, according to his disclosure forms.”
MacArthur is the author of the amendment in the Republican bill that removes protections for people for with pre-existing conditions.
