Chiropractors and Black
For today’s (2/21/2006) paper, I'll add to the cannon of stories on House Speaker Jim Black's campaign finances.
Update:(Click here for the story.)
In particular, this story looks at giving from chiropractors to Black's campaign during the July 1 through Dec. 31 (2005) time period. Chiropractors gave Black 33 contributions during those six months, 25 of which are recorded as having arrived on Dec. 7. The cash and in-kind total from the Chiropractors to Black during that time period was $38,779.87.
This came four months after Black helped make the following part of the state budget:
An insurer shall not impose as a limitation on treatment or level of coverage a co-payment amount charged to the insured for chiropractic services that is higher than the co-payment amount charged to the insured for the services of a duly licensed primary care physician for the same medically necessary treatment or condition.
That provision makes it cheaper for patients to go to a chiropractor. Instead of paying the co-payment one would for a specialists (like a plastic surgeon), patients pay the usually lower co-pay that goes with seeing a general practitioner.
Source material and credits:
- The state budget bill. (Section 6.29 is the relevant bit.)
- Black's campaign finance report. This is a large PDF file. An index of his campaign reports can be found here.
- Several papers noted the change for chiropractors around the time the budget bill passed in August. Here's the Google cash of the N+O's story from back then.
So why'd I get into this? A couple of reasons:
- There is somewhat of a Greensboro connection to this story, which is what got me interested initially. Four of the chiropractor-donors practice in Greensboro. Those donations were substantial, ranging from $500 to $4,000.
- I have written before about support from Speaker Black going to local candidates, but I hadn't written about local donors giving to Black. This was a good way to show the tide of political money flows both ways.
As always, feel free to leave your thoughts, suggestions and complaints at the comments link below, or e-mail me directly at mbinker@news-record.com.
Comments (3)
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Intersting story - but why do you write a story that makes it look like Speaker Black is suddenly taking contributions from Chiropractors - when in fact they have been contributing to him since the early 1990's? It's interesting how the press only reports certain information and not the whole story - making the story look much worse than it is....
What about a story on how Rep. Ed McMahan of Charlotte gets contributions from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of NC - and is the head of Little Diversified Architecture (Vice Chairman) - BCBSNC is a, if not the, major client of the firm - yet McMahan does not recuse himself from deliberations pertaining to BCBS issues since he has been in the State House.
Looks to me that McMahan benefits from the political contributions - but more importantly - and something that sounds like quid pro quo, is that he and his firm are getting huge contracts from BCBS NC - thus McMahan is financially benefiting from BCBS. (1. BCBS corporate facility, 2. BCBS data center, 3. BCBS lobby renovations, 4. BCBS parking deck, 5. Partners National Health Plans interiors)
What about all of the state funding that goes to the architectural firm? Does McMahan recuse himself from these deliberations and votes? I believe his firm has major contracts with UNC system for various projects - did he vote on the funding for these projects that his company nows has contracts for?
Looks to me that these are pretty simple facts to find - and should be told by the media - if in fact the media is looking to be fair in reporting about the whole problem in Raleigh - and not out to conduct a media lynching on one person!
Oh - and there are so many more stories in Raleigh - involving many other legislators and elected officials of the Council of State - Republicans and Democrats....
Posted on February 21, 2006 11:48 AM
Abe: There's no doubt that there are many more interesting stories around. --mark
Posted on February 21, 2006 12:00 PM
Mark, interesting report.
Chiropractors have often been more savvy businessmen than medical doctors because they are more often in solo practice. It therefore surprises me, at some level, that they are continuing to try to get hooked on insurance money. Many medical doctors wish they could somehow reduce this dependence, and would gladly embrace a situation in which they did not have to deal with health insurance companies.
Posted on February 21, 2006 1:42 PM