Daines Made Massive Investments in Health Care Funds Near Major Votes Cast in the Senate

“Troubling” Timing of Investments A “Violation of the Public Trust”

A new report from the Montana Post details the “troubling” timing of Senator Steve Daines’ massive investments in health care funds and subsequent votes on major legislation affecting these investments. In one example, the vulnerable Republican incumbent invested in a health care fund on the very day he voted to pave the way to gutting the Affordable Care Act and coverage protections for pre-existing conditions while spiking costs for millions of Americans – an effort that was “widely seen as benefiting investors.” Because Daines’ investments are held in mutual funds, any transactions Daines is making this year will not be publicly disclosed until 2021, after he is up for re-election, hiding the full picture of his personal financial interests from Montana voters.   

The investments are yet another “troubling” example of Daines’ putting his personal interests ahead of his constituents — last month, it was revealed that Daines had investments in pharmaceutical companies producing the drug hydroxychloroquine, which he touted as a potential treatment for COVID-19, despite numerous studies calling into question the drug’s safety and efficacy.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Montana Post: Steve Daines Has Made Massive Investments in Health Care Funds Near Major Votes He’s Cast in the Senate

By Don Pogreba

May 5, 2020

Key Points:

• Is Senator Steve Daines fattening his investment portfolio at the expense of Montanans? A look at his investments while in the Senate shows that Daines invested large sums of money in healthcare funds precisely at the time he was voting on major legislation affecting them, including investment in insurance and Big Pharma made just as he was voting to end the Affordable Care Act.

• In 2017 and 2018, Daines made 118 mutual fund transactions totaling as much as $6.8 million while casting votes on the Senate floor, and at least a few are quite troubling.

• One striking example of these purchases came in 2017. On July 24 and 25th of that year, Daines purchased up to $100,000 in shares of the Vanguard Health Care Fund Admiral Shares Fund, which is heavily invested in health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Its top holdings have included insurers Anthem Inc and UnitedHealth, and pharmaceutical giants Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Eli Lilly and more.

• And on July 25, 2017, the very day he invested in the fund, Daines voted, in a critical 50-50 procedural vote that paved the way for the Republican effort to end the Affordable Care Act and replace it with the Republican American Health Care Act.

• These votes against the ACA were widely seen as benefiting investors by reducing the protections available to consumers.

• These purchases are not evidence of insider trading nor even a violation of the law, but violations of the public trust. Senator Daines, who has made a career of writing himself tax breaks for his real estate business, is also voting against our physical and mental health to improve the health of his investment portfolio.

• Those rural hospitals the Daines is now belatedly giving credit for their frontline response to COVID-19? In July of 2017, he was voting to end the Medicaid Expansion vital to keeping them open and keeping Montanans healthy. And, at the very same time, he was investing in insurers and Big Pharma to make a buck while he stripped us of adequate care.

Read the full report here.

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