With the election looming and the beginning of annual open enrollment periods for health insurance plans, it is vital to pull back the curtain on the influx of money from Big Insurance corporations to political campaigns and lobbying. 

Data available from OpenSecrets.com thus far in 2024 shows that 93% of Congressional incumbents running in 2024 received contributions from Big Insurance, including 100% of Senate incumbents. These insurance corporations run the ten largest Medicare Advantage plans in the country and are known to deny needed health care and defraud the government, but face little to no consequences.

Additionally, as bipartisan scrutiny of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and Medicare Advantage plans has intensified, spending by Big Insurance on lobbying has increased.

This open enrollment season, people struggling to choose a health insurance plan that they can afford and that provides the care they need may ask themselves, “Why is our health care system like this?” The immense amounts of money Big Insurance spends to blanket members of Congress with contributions and lobbying hold the answer. 

Additional analysis following the election will allow evaluation of just how much Big Insurance spends on politics to help protect industry profits and will give health reform advocates an idea of how to overcome this influence to pass policies for patients, not profits.