Kyle Bell

Representative Mike Ross of Arkansas is in hot water as news of a land deal with a pharmacy company emerges. Along with his wife, Rep. Ross collected $1-$1.6 million from USA Drug for property and assets that were sold for well above their actual worth. As Politico reports:

But the $420,000 that USA Drug paid for the pharmacy’s building and land was just the beginning of what Ross and his wife, Holly, made from the sale of Holly’s Health Mart. USA Drug owner Stephen L. LaFrance Sr. also paid the Rosses $500,000 to $1 million for the pharmacy’s assets and paid Holly Ross an additional $100,000 to $250,000 for signing a noncompete agreement. Those numbers, which Mike Ross listed on the financial disclosure reports he files as a member of Congress, bring the total value of the transaction to between $1 million and $1.67 million. And that’s not counting the $2,300 campaign contribution Ross received from LaFrance two weeks after the sale closed.

The outspoken conservative Democrat has repeatedly shunned the public option, despite polling that has shown its popularity. There’s nothing that a little hush money can’t buy. $1 million seems to be worth at least one Blue Dog vote in the House of Representatives. And he’s doing his job working for the pharmacuetical industry well. Him along with other conservatives are doing all that they can to kill the public option.

“I have been skeptical about the public health insurance option from the beginning and used August to get feedback from you, my constituents,” he wrote in a statement that the Washington Post published. “An overwhelming number of you oppose a government-run health insurance option, and it is your feedback that has led me to oppose the public option as well.”