In her presidential campaign announcement Feb. 10, Sen. Amy Klobuchar called for allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. She told an anecdote about a Twin Cities diabetic who could not afford the price of his insulin and later died.
“The obstacle to change? The big pharma companies think they own Washington. Well, they don’t own me,” the Minnesota Democrat told supporters.
But one of those “big pharma” companies, which manufactures a hugely expensive insulin delivery product made by no one else, has funded her campaigns for years.
Medtronic, the world’s largest medical device company, which runs most of its operations out of Fridley, Minn., became the biggest maker of insulin pumps after its 2011 purchase of MiniMed.
Currently, the MiniMed 670G Insulin Pump System contains the only FDA-approved sensor to control insulin dosing. Online medical stores priced the device at over $7,200.
Medtronic was Klobuchar’s third-largest contributor to her reelection bid from 2011 to 2016, donating nearly $45,000. Between 2005 and 2010, before its acquisition of MiniMed, Medtronic donated $46,300.
One thing that seems to separates Klobuchar from the 2020 pack is her image as a straight-shooting, rigorous lawmaker who can work for the public good on an arcane subject like antitrust regulation and monopolies.
A review of the Minnesota lawmaker’s donations in FEC filings going back to 2011, however, shows that Klobuchar is a darling of the very companies she says she wants to rein in. They have demonstrated their admiration by showering her with cash.
Klobuchar does not appear to have questioned many of these acquisitions.
Companies seeking consolidation and market share are among Klobuchar’s most generous donors. Many of them have found themselves in the target of both the Justice Department’s antitrust division or the Federal Trade Commission.
“She might be perceived [by corporations] as a person who can be bought,” Tom Anderson, Director of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group in Washington, D.C., told the Washington Examiner.
“She either has the appearance that corporations have her ear, or [corporations] believe they have her ear.”
Klobuchar introduced a bill just last month that overhauls how the country enforces antitrust violations.
The Minnesota prosecutor-turned-politician, who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, said: “Antitrust enforcement affects more than just price and output — it’s part of our everyday lives, from the price of groceries at the market to the cost of prescription drugs.”
She declared on the Senate floor that America has “a monopoly problem,” and warned against corporate mergers. The legislation she’s authored is intended to stop mergers by mega-corporations and fund the federal government’s efforts to police such deals.
Her donations, however, demonstrate a pattern of companies under investigation for antitrust violations funding her campaigns.
Klobuchar has repeatedly emphasized how a lack of antitrust enforcement can impact consumer food prices. Cargill Inc, a Minnesota-based food producer and distributor, is America’s largest privately held corporation. The nearly $60 billion company has been one of Klobuchar’s top donors for half a decade.
Cargill was also the subject of a bipartisan probe by both Republican attorneys general and President Barack Obama’s Justice Department in 2013 over its plan to merge its flour production arm with ConAgra Foods Inc. A year later, the Justice Department eventually required the company to divest from four of its major flour mills in order to protect consumer prices.
Over the last 40 years, Cargill has been the target of at least seven major anti-competition investigations, ranging from accusations of attempting to fix prices of paint resins to artificially inflating the price of road salt.
Despite these investigations, Cargill was the third-largest donor from 2013 to 2018 to Klobuchar’s Senate reelection campaign, with over $53,000 in contributions — nearly three times what Planned Parenthood gave her over the same time period.
“These politicians start to believe they’re not effected by big money; it’s a joke. Going out in public and saying otherwise is laughable,” Anderson said.
When Comcast announced its intention to purchase Time Warner Cable in 2014, Klobuchar immediately articulated concerns both on the Senate floor and in press releases to her constituents. “This proposed merger could have a significant impact on the cable industry and affect consumers across the country,” Klobuchar said.
Following the company’s merger with NBC Universal, antitrust hawks immediately viewed the proposed deal with suspicion.
Despite her concerns, Klobuchar permitted Comcast Corporation to be her eighth-largest donor over five years, from 2013 to 2018. The company also shelled out nearly $25,000 to her leadership PAC over the same period of time, more than a number of labor unions or the University of Minnesota.
General Mills, another Minnesota-based food processing behemoth, has given over a $120,000 to Klobuchar since she began her career. Throughout that time, that company has sought regulator approval for acquisitions worth billions of dollars.
Klobuchar’s antitrust rhetoric often focuses on pharmaceuticals and the healthcare industry. Last May, she called on the FTC to investigate pharmaceutical companies for allegedly operating a closed distribution system.
Deals the one between Medtronic and MiniMed constitute what is commonly called vertical integration and horizontal consolidation — the practice by which a business buys or merges with another that is crucial in its supply chain or makes a similar product.
Such arrangements have earned the wrath of Klobuchar in the Senate.
“These deals are part of a pattern of horizontal consolidation and vertical integration that is transforming many of our important industries and in some cases threatening competition and consumer welfare,” the senator said during an antitrust hearing in October 2018.
Medtronic was not a subject of the hearing.
Sen. Klobuchar’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
