I always wondered why...

...Tom Donahue (above), President of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, was so opposed to health care reform. After all, weren't American companies tired of paying for their employees' health insurance? Wasn't it health care costs that finally did in General Motors?

A Bloomberg article, "Health Insurers Gave $86 Million to Fight Health Law," explains the mystery:

Health insurers last year gave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce $86.2 million that was used to oppose the health-care overhaul law, according to tax records and people familiar with the donation.
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By funneling the money through the Chamber, insurers were able to remain at the table negotiating with Democrats while still getting the bill criticized. “It enables you to have it both ways,” Trevor Potter said in a phone interview.

“They clearly thought the Chamber would be a more credible source of information and advertising on health-care reform, and it would appear less self-serving if a broader business group made arguments against it than if the insurers did it,” said Potter, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.
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The Center for Responsive Politics’ Klein said that the public would have been “better served” by insurers disclosing the money when they gave it. “Perhaps this key debate would have progressed differently if the true source of the chamber’s spending had been known at the time,” Klein said.
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U.S. ChamberWatch, a Washington group that has been critical of the Chamber of Commerce, called the $86.2 million transaction “breathtakingly” large. “The U.S. Chamber has given up the right to call themselves the voice of American business; they are the voice of the insurance industry,” Christy Setzer, the group’s spokeswoman, said in a statement.