WellCare’s National Health Care Plan

By Ken Silverstein

I mentioned last fall that this scandal was likely to blow down the road: It looks like the eruption is coming, as AP reports now:

While Florida politicians were considering a vast overhaul of the state’s troubled Medicaid system, a Tampa company that administered care for half a million poor and needy residents was busy lining their pockets with campaign donations.

WellCare Health Plans Inc., its subsidiaries and executives spent $2.4 million on political contributions in the 2004 and 2006 elections, according to an analysis of campaign records by The Associated Press. More than 95 percent of it went to Republicans, who pushed forward a nationally watched plan that funnels more state and federal Medicaid spending than ever through private companies like WellCare, which profit most by providing the least care.