Speaking about the Fair Elections Now Act at a forum at the Center for American Progress, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) commented that President Lyndon Johnson wouldn't have been able to pass Medicare today with the influence of campaign cash.

To watch the video footage, click here.

Public Campaign Action Fund issued a press release today showing that over the summer as health care reform legislation was being debated in Congress Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) raised huge sums from the health care and insurance industries.

The National Journal has a story today showing the top 25 spenders in the health care debate, based on total lobbying expenses for the first half of 2009.

For the full story, click here.

Public Campaign Action Fund issued part two of its report on efforts by the insurance industry to kill health care reform with huge amounts of campaign giving and lobbying expenditures.

A recent story on Georgia-based ledger-enquirer.com discusses the huge amount of health care industry campaign cash flowing to Blue Dog Democrats as the health care debate rages on in Congress.

ABCnews.com is reporting today that K Street lobbyists are swarming Capitol Hill, outnumbering members of Congress six to one, as health care reform legislation is being debated in Congress.

"Whenever you have a big piece of legislation like this, it's like ringing the dinner bell for K Street," said Bill Allison, senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation.

An article today in the North Carolina Policy Watch blog explains how vastly different the current health care reform debate in Congress would be without industry cash flying around the Capitol.

The story goes on to mention the Fair Elections Now Act (H.R.1826), which has been co-sponsored by Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), as a way to curtail the influence of health care industry campaign contributions.

The Baltimore Sun has an editorial today on the battle in Congress over health care reform and the role that big money will play in the outcome. The editorial cites a recently released report by Common Cause.

Nate Silver from FiveThirtyEight.com has written an interesting statistical analysis of money in politics as it relates to the current debate on health care reform and the popular public option.

"What happens if we set the lobbying variable to zero for all senators? That is, suppose that the health care insurance industry were prohibited from making political contributions?

The Billings Gazette reports that Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who as chair of the Senate Finance Committee is a key legislator in the current health care reform debate, has received huge amounts of campaign money from the health care and insurance industries.