by Wynton Hall BigGovernment.com has obtained records of Massachusetts Democrat Senator John Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz’s stock portfolios that show almost perfectly timed pharmaceutical stock trades during the Obamacare debate, which fattened their already enormous personal fortune.
The documents further support allegations of suspicious trading leveled during Sunday’s 60 Minutes report about the explosive new book by investigative reporter and Breitbart News editor Peter Schweizer, Throw Them All Out.
Sen. John Kerry’s position on the powerful Senate Finance Committee’s Health Subcommittee gives him direct access to critical information regarding health care policy. In July 2009, pharmaceutical industry representatives met with key members of Congress to flesh out the Obamacare bill. Then, in November 2009, with the bill’s passage was looking more likely, the Kerrys’ portfolios reflect a drug stock buying spree.
First, $750,000 worth of stock in drug maker Teva Pharmaceuticals was added to their portfolios at around $50 a share. Once Obamacare passed, the value of the stock rose to $62 per share. Subsequently, in 2010, a portion of Teva holdings was dumped from the Kerry portfolio, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in capital gains (exact profits are unclear because politicians are only required to report ranges, not exact dollar amounts).
Next, at least $200,000 of stock in medical device manufacturer ResMed was purchased in the $20 to $25 per share range. After Obamacare passed, ResMed jumped to $34, an increase of as much as 71%. “ResMed was a winner in the health care reform legislation—as Reuters declared—thanks in part to John Kerry’s efforts,” says Schweizer. The reason: earlier versions of the Obamacare bill would have slapped companies like ResMed with an “industry fee” tax. Kerry opposed the higher taxes on medical device companies and helped delay the taxes until 2013.
Next, between $250,000 and $500,000 worth Thermo Fisher Scientific were added to the Kerry family portfolios at around $35 per share. After Obamacare’s passage, the stock skyrocketed to more than $50 a share.
Even as their portfolios reflected aggressive purchasing of drug company stocks, Sen. Kerry was dumping investments in health insurance companies. At the end of June 2009, all United Health shares were unloaded from their portfolios. Their Wellpoint stocks were also sold. Six weeks later, he then introduced an amendment to tax generous health care plans, a move sure to hurt companies like United Health and Wellpoint.
Throw Them All Out contends that Sen. Kerry is no stranger to making huge profits off of health care-related trading based on his rare access to information. “Some of [Kerry’s] biggest scores,” writes Schweizer, “were tied to his knowledge of obscure matters that had huge ramifications for certain companies.”
One such instance occurred in 2007, when the government was deciding whether an anemia drug made by Amgen would receive Medicare reimbursement. Before news of the congressional negotiations went public, however, the Kerrys’ investment fund executed two perfectly timed stock sales. On May 4th and 7th, between $500,000 and $1 million worth of Amgen were sold off. The move helped him avoid between $50,000 and $100,000 in losses.
Another example of Kerry’s deft congressional trading happened in 2003 during the negotiations over the prescription drug benefit plan. Kerry’s Senate committee was in charge of the plan’s oversight. In 2003, writes Schweizer, “a stunning 111 transactions of pharmaceutical companies and health insurance companies” were made to the Kerrys’ portfolios.
The Kerrys’ investment funds bulked up on:
- More than $500,000 of Johnson & Johnson
- As much as $1 million of Pfizer
- At least $200,000 in Oxford Health Plans
- Between $500,000 and $1 million in United Health Group
- At least $100,000 of Cardinal Health
- At least $240,000 of Merck
The result: after the bill was signed into law in 2004, some of the Kerrys’ investments were sold, which netted between $100,000 and $1 million from Oxford Health Plans, plus tens of thousands from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Cardinal Health.
Are all these expertly executed transactions merely coincidence?
Absent a formal investigation, Schweizer says there’s no way to say for sure. Moreover, other members of Congress, both for and against Obamacare, were also executing health care-related stock transactions during the health care debate as well. However, if similar trades had been made in the private sector, SEC investigations would surely have followed. Yet since members of Congress are not held to the same insider trading laws as companies and executives, no such investigations have yet been launched.
Regardless, as Schweizer notes in Throw Them All Out, “the timing seems far too good to be true.”
