A Few Notes from Saturday's Inky

A few things that caught my eye from Saturday's Inquirer:

from "Health insurers' donations shift to GOP," by Jim Kuhnhenn and Richardo Alonso-Zaldivar: The gist is that health insurance PACs supported the health insurance reform bill as long as it included a mandate for everyone to have insurance (otherwise it isn't financially feasible) but now that it has passed the donations are tipping more towards Republicans hoping for less stringent regulations. For instance the bill that passed called for health insurance companies to spend 80% of premiums people pay to actually be spent on medical care. The insurance companies don't like that.

from the editorials, "Cash on the barrel:"

An so Senate President Pro Tem Joseph Scarnati (R., Jefferson) has amassed at least $143,000 in campaign donations from the [natural gas] industry. The Senate GOP never even held a vote on a tax proposal. When Scarnati's team left town, it was considering a tax that would have been among the lowest in the nation.

If Republican Tom Corbett is elected governor in November, the tax issue will be dead for at least four more years. He opposes the production tax and has accepted more than $700,000 from an industry hoping he wins. Democrat Dan Onorato, who has received far less from gas drillers, wants to impose a production tax.