while some are calling out bringing up history an "attack" it's undendiable that Obama was the key conduit between lobbyists and the legislature to kill universal health care.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articl es/2007/09/23/in_illinois_obama_dealt_wi th_lobbyists/?page=1

On one side were healthcare advocates, eager to capitalize on the Democrats having won control of the General Assembly and the governor's office. On the other were most insurers, who worked vigorously to sink the bill. Obama was in the middle, trying to reconcile a range of agendas to get a viable plan signed into law.

The bill originally called for a "Bipartisan Health Care Reform Commission" to implement a program reaching all 12.4 million Illinois residents. The legislation would have made it official state policy to ensure that all residents could access "quality healthcare at costs that are reasonable." Insurers feared that language would result in a government takeover of healthcare, even though the bill did not explicitly say that.

Most significant, universal healthcare became merely a policy goal instead of state policy - the proposed commission, renamed the Adequate Health Care Task Force, was charged only with studying how to expand healthcare access. In the same amendment, Obama also sought to give insurers a voice in how the task force developed its plan.

Lobbyists praised Obama for taking the insurance industry's concerns into consideration.

"Barack is a very reasonable person who clearly recognized the various roles involved in the healthcare system," said Phil Lackman, a lobbyist for insurance agents and brokers. Obama "understood our concern that we didn't want a predetermined outcome."

In one attempt at a deal, Obama approached the Campaign for Better Health Care with insurers' concerns, asking if the group would consider a less stringent mandate than requiring the state to come up with a universal healthcare plan. The coalition decided not to bend, said Jim Duffett, the group's executive director.

"The concept of the Health Care Justice Act was to bring the sides - the different perspectives and stakeholders - to the table," Duffett said. "In this situation, Obama was being a conduit from the insurance industry to us."

Obama later watered down the bill after hearing from insurers and after a legal precedent surfaced during the debate indicating that it would be unconstitutional for one legislative assembly to pass a law requiring a future legislative assembly to craft a healthcare plan.

And yet while serving in Illinois, Obama was willing to accept campaign contributions from lobbyists. Obama's state Senate campaign committee accepted contributions from insurance companies and their lobbyists - including $1,000 from the Professional Independent Insurance Agents PAC in June 2003, and $1,000 from the Illinois Insurance PAC in December 2003 - while the Health Care Justice Act was wending its way through the Illinois General Assembly. Obama also collected money from the insurance industry and its lobbyists for his successful US Senate campaign in 2004.

Obama's campaign has said that his position on accepting such contributions has evolved and that he decided not to accept them for his presidential campaign after seeing how much influence lobbyists had in Washington during his first two years in the Senate.

how many voters know about this?