Campaign contributors, current and former staffers and even lobbyists may be re-considering their ties to a man who once served as the GOP’s primary fund-raiser in the Senate.

At least three high-profile staffers have left Ensign’s orbit after the news broke of his affair with Cynthia Hampton. This includes the departure of ex-chief of staff John Lopez, ex-communications director Tory Mazzola and Mike Slanker, who worked with Ensign as the political director of the Republican National Senatorial Committee, which Ensign chaired.

OpenSecrets has a long dissertation about Ensign’s money contributors which is well worth reading, particularly if you live in Nevada. [Source: OpenSecrets]

If you have been watching Keith Olbermann on Countdown on MSNBC TV you will be aware of his Special Comment about healthcare yesterday and that he is sponsoring The National Association of Free Clinics.

If you haven’t you can watch his hour long Special Comment delivered yesterday on this blog at Keith Olbermann: Special Comment of Wednesday October 7 2009. At the closing of his Special Comment he made us a proposition:

So I propose tonight one act with two purposes. I propose we, all of us, embrace the selfless individuals at the National Association of Free Clinics. You know them, they conducted the mass health care free clinic in Houston that served 1,500 people. I want a mass health care free clinic every week in the principle cities of the states of the six senators key to defeating a filibuster against health care reform in the Senate.

I want Sens. Lincoln [D-AR] and Pryor [D-AR] to see what health care poverty is really like in Little Rock. I want Sen. Baucus [D-MT] to see it in Butte. I want Sen. Ben Nelson [D-NE] to see it in Lincoln. I want Sen. Landrieu [D-LA] to see it in Baton Rouge. I want Sen. Reid to see it in Las Vegas.

I’ll donate. How much will you donate? We enable thousands of our neighbors to have just a portion of the bounty of good health, and we make a statement to the politicians, forgive me, William Jennings Bryan, “you shall not press down upon the brow of America this crown of insurance, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of blue.”

He reiterated his sponsorship the the National Association of Free Clinics again tonight by donating $50,000 as seed money to finance the free clinics. If you don’t know anything about the National Association of Free Clinics your can check out their website here.

The National Association of Free Clinics (NAFC) is the only nonprofit 501c(3) organization whose mission is solely focused on the issues and needs of the more than 1,200 free clinics and the people they serve in the United States.
Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., the NAFC is an effective advocate for the issues and concerns of free clinics, their volunteer workforce of doctors, dentists, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, nurse practitioners, technicians and other health care professionals, and the patients served by free clinics in communities throughout the nation.

I just made a $50 donation. If you have been keeping up with you news. The object of the Free Clinics is to show the six Senators the face of poverty and the need for a public option in the healthcare reform bill being bantered about the Congress. It is a hell of a note that such efforts have to be exerted just to get the eye of these Senators, but they don’t really know any poor people up close and personal.

Perhaps, if any of them actually show up at these clinics, they’ll learn something. We’ll see what they do, and if any of it soaks into their hard heads. If it doesn’t there is always the next election to find someone who does understand and will do something about the atrocious stranglehold health insurance and pharmaceutical companies have on people. Remember what Olbermann said about his visit to the drug store:

The woman who needed the prescription spoke even more slowly than the pharmacist had. She had almost no hope in her voice. “Try the Cigna. Please.” Another drug store, late at night. The pharmacist was a friend of mine. “You have to do something about this,” he said as he handed me my refill and then reached for somebody else’s prescription. “You see this? Anti-fungal cream. I just filled this. You know what this costs wholesale? Four dollars. You know what I have to sell it for? Two hundred and sixty-three dollars. I sell it for less and I get fired and maybe we lose our license.”

Now is you chance to do a good deed, to help get the attention of those Senators, to help get a decent health care bill passed WITH A PUBLIC OPTION that will combat the predatory insurance practices perpetrated on us all. Please make your donation today. There aren’t many days left to act, don’t let them slip away.

Rachel Maddow broke some amazing news last night on MSNBC:

“Two major powerbrokers on the left…are encouraging a Senate strategy in which the leadership would revoke chairmanships and other leadership positions from any Democrat who sides with a Republican filibuster to block a vote on health reform.”

Click here to sign a petition to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in support of this idea.

We’ll deliver the petition signatures to Harry Reid next week after a big news conference in front of the Senate.

What does this proposal mean? In general, it means Democrats need to be Democrats!

Republicans are planning to use the Senate “filibuster” procedure to block a vote on health care reform. But if all Senate Democrats stick together, a clean up-or-down vote will take place.

This means 51 votes — not “60 votes” — would be needed to pass reform. And winning a public health insurance option would be very likely.

It’s critical that Harry Reid sees immediate support for this idea — please sign the petition tonight and tell your friends.

Which senators would feel pressure from this proposal? All the senators who are siding with the insurance companies and opposing the public option: Max Baucus (D-MT), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) are some examples.

Let’s send a clear message: It’s not OK for Democratic senators to join with Republicans to block a vote on health care. Period.

Please click here sign the petition today — and then tell your friends.

Thanks for being a bold progressive.

–Adam Green, Stephanie Taylor, Aaron Swartz, Evan Miller, Michael Snook, and the PCCC team

Being a member of the peasant class and having watched Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story wherein the phrase “dead peasant insurance” was used my interest was piqued. The widow of a man who worked in a bank in Texas died. Turned out the bank had bought and owned a life insurance policy on the woman’s husband. The bank was the sole beneficiary of the insurance policy. The widow, unaware of the policy, received nothing, the bank got it all. The proceeds of the policy added to the banks profits, apparently tax free. Moore’s movie declared that many more corporations engage in the “dead peasant” practice.

Then last night watching Keith Olbermann’s hour long special comment he referred to the “dead peasant” matter again.

So I decided to see if I could learn some more. I start with Wikipedia.

Corporate-owned life insurance (COLI) is life insurance on employees’ lives that is owned by the employer corporation, with benefits payable to the corporation. COLI was originally purchased on the lives of key employees and executives by a company to hedge against the financial cost of losing key employees to unexpected death, the risk of recruiting and training replacements of necessary or highly-trained personnel, or to fund corporate obligations to redeem stock upon the death of an owner. This use is commonly known as “key man” or “key person” insurance. Once, COLI was used for masses of non-key employees in order to get tax benefits, a practice known as “janitor insurance” or “dead peasant insurance”.

Congress and the IRS set some guidelines and limits on this practice. Today, COLI is most common for senior executives of a firm, but its use for general employees is still practiced. Recouping the cost of losing an employee versus actually profiting from their death at a level higher than their earning potential in particular raises questions. Estimating the value of an employee to a company is difficult. Recent questions have been raised in Michael Moore’s 2009 film Capitalism: A Love Story.

Under the Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) dealing with life insurance benefits paid due to the death of the insured, the benefits are usually excluded from the taxable income of the beneficiary.

Because of the tax-free nature of death benefits, the IRC prohibits the deduction of the premiums paid for life insurance when the premium payor is also the owner of the insurance. In addition, loans from insurers secured by policy values are not income and earnings credited to an owner’s policy values (known as “inside buildup”) by the insurance company are not currently taxed (and may escape taxation altogether if such earnings are not distributed other than as part of the death benefits paid upon the death of the insured).

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