Case Study: Mckesson's Political Directory

Political Directory Project U.S. Representative Democrat Diana DeGette for Congressional District 1 received $143,585 in 2016 campaign contribution, thus far, from the Health Sector, which represents 47.8% of contributions. The Pharmaceutical/Health Products Industries under the Health umbrella is the largest combined source of support for DeGette. Multiple companies contributed but the company giving the largest amount, $10,000, is McKesson, Corp, which hires individual lobbyists rather than firms for their special interest biddings. The contributions are reported as PAC funds, however, no PAC name is given, only the company name. As stated on the OpenSecrets.Org website, “The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organizations’ PAC’s, … Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.” The Health Section has contributed to 531 of the 535 Congressional members in 2016 totaling $53,971,963; Democrats received 41.9%, Republicans 52% and Others 0.1%. The Health Sector traditionally contributes more funds to Republicans than Democrat campaigns. McKesson touts itself as the oldest and largest health care services company in the nation, and serves 52% of American hospitals, 20% of physicians and 100% of health plans and is the largest pharmaceutical distributor in North America. Additionally, McKesson has multiple subsidiaries each with their own …show more content…
DeGette’s Denver office and a visit was not feasible. However, Congresswoman DeGette spoke at the Community College of Denver on March 8, 2016, along with Maryland Rep. John Sarbanes on the topic of big money campaign finance. Last year, Sarbanes introduced the Government By the People Act, a bill to address campaign finance reform, which was designed to give the average Americans more power to influence elections. DeGette is in support of this bill to provide incentives to candidates to collect small donations, not PAC