Wednesday, October 29, 2008

In Politics, Money Matters

When it comes to driving policy for health care in the upcoming election, money matters. I thought just before the election it would be interesting to see how different groups supported the presidential candidates.

From the Chicago Tribune's website on the 2007-2008 presidential campaign contributions, I punched in some search terms for the occupations of various donors, and this is what I found:

Click image to enlarge
In every category, whether it be doctors, lawyers, nurses or hospitals, Obama's fund raising machine received more contributions and more dollars toward his campaign from health-related occupations.

But to keep today's health care costs in perspective, if we assume that the average family's annual insurance coverage costs $13,000 per year, Obama's total fund raising tab amongst the above groups would cover only a few more than 2300 families.

Wow.

Anyway, don't let all of this money go to waste - get out and vote on Tuesday.

-Wes

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Political Asperger's Syndrome: Doctors are smart clinicians but politically inappropriate with colossal bad judgement.

Eric Turkewitz said...

It's an odd look at stats, since most lawyers have nothing to do with healthcare. Lumping in lawyers that do real estate transactions or mergers and acquisitions with those that might have an interest in healthcare seems like an unproductive comparison.

And if you were trying to compute such stats, shouldn't all the healthcare companies and drug companies also be included with the doctors/hospitals?

Anonymous said...

...says Anonymous who undoubtedly makes well over $250,000a year but lacks the propensity of having good common sense.

Anonymous said...

Filtering comments Dr. Wes, I would have thought better...

Anonymous said...

Eric-

Not all doctors see patients either. The limitations of the search are as I stated - merely checked the search terms offered by the website and took the occupations claimed at face value, nothing more. (Might there also be doctor/lawyers? Sure. How are they classified? Not sure - they might show up in both camps.) Your points are well-taken regarding TYPES of lawyers, but I just searched this database for what it's worth, and the sheer number and financial clout of lawyers still dwarfs that of doctors as an occupation.

Anony 03:04 - I screen all commentary because of legal ramifications and risks of non-anonymous blogging that I have endured which I discuss in the post after this one. As a non-anonymous blogger, I do not have the luxury of lurking behind an anonymous pseudonym like you do. I'd encourage you to read all of the links on the subsequent post. If you still think I'm crazy to moderate commentary, please, you are free to go elsewhere.