The intent of this series is to show how politicians have tax payer funded health care as benefit for their service, yet oppose a public option for tax payers while taking a lot money from health care interests. It make me wonder what’s more important, the money or the voters who want a public option.

There are three major data points that I have used. They include years of service, top donors by industry, and top donors by individual entity. I thought it would be beneficial to keep a running total so ever four politicians I will have a cumulative summary with totals

Here are the links for the first four diaries in this series Joe Liberman, Lindsey Graham, Kent Conrad and Max Baucus.

For years of service, I’m going to average that data point for consideration. Liberman has served the public for 37 years, Graham for 19 years, Conrad for 22 years, and Baucus for 35 years. That averages out to be 28.25 years of tax payer funded health care.

Please note that I used Wiki for Conrad since his Senate Web site did not break his service down in years.

I used OpenSecrets for the data about the top donors by industry, and top donors by individual entity. The links to the OpenSecrets data are below.

Liberman – Industry, Donors
Graham – Industry,Donors
Conrad - Industry ,Donors
Baucus – Industry, Donors

The links above provide the data for the totals below. The totals are the amount of money donated to the campaign committees for 2008 election cycle for Liberman, Graham, Conrad and Baucus.

$1,764795.00 from Heath Professionals
$1,196423.00 from Pharmaceuticals/Health Products Industries
$515022.00 form Hospitals/Nursing Homes
$515,515.00 from Health Services/HMOs
$179,782.00 from the Insurance industry

$114,250.00 form DaVita Inc., a provider of dialysis
$138,600.00 from Perdue Pharmaceuticals
$132,200.00 from Aetna
$95,350.00 from Amgen Inc., a biotechnology developing medicines
$73,350.00 from Blue Cross and Blue Shield
$72,200.00 from Schering-Plough Corp, a pharmaceutical company
$28,400.00 from Kindred Heathcare
$20,270.00 from GenPhar, a gen biopharmacy company

With the average term of service being 28.25 years, it’s a sweet deal to have your health care financed by the voters, and to have your campaign financed by health care interests. It’s no wonder they are against the public option.