Watch Politicians Debate Health Care -- And Watch Their Donors

Feb. 25, 2010, 12:03 p.m. EST

As the president meets with congressional leaders today to debate health care reform, the Sunlight Foundation has come up with a very useful way of watching the event: There's live video -- and when a politician starts speaking, Sunlight shows their top campaign contributors.

For example, at the moment of writing, Sen. Tom Coburn had the floor. Watching the Sunlight Foundation's live stream, we can see his top career industry donor has been health professionals, who've given the Oklahoma lawmaker $984,889.

Also of note is this study (PDF) conducted by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington detailing information on health industry donations to the summit's participants in recent years. According to the report, over the past five years the 21 politicians at the summit have received nearly $47 million from the industry.

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