Soon after the Tax Policy Center released its analysis of Bernie Sanders’ tax and healthcare plans last week, the negative headlines began to pile up about the Vermont lawmaker’s push to extend Medicare coverage to all Americans. Though a new Gallup poll shows Sanders’ plan is widely popular, news outlets across the country pounced on one of the findings, which said the plan would increase the U.S. budget deficit by some $18 trillion between 2017 and 2026. One paper, the Washington Post, posted four critical Sanders stories in just seven hours.

Left unsaid in the headlines and stories that condemned Sanders’ healthcare proposal is that the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute, the two major organizations behind the Tax Policy Center, have received big contributions from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries — industries whose profits could be reduced by Sanders’ single-payer Medicare-for-all plan. That is on top of money the groups have received from Wall Street firms , fossil fuel companies, efforts connected to the billionaire Charles Koch, a foundation founded by the heirs to the Walmart fortune and others that Sanders has criticized.

Health insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts delivered between $300,000 and $600,000 in 2012 and 2014 to the Urban Institute, while insurer UnitedHealthcare gave Brookings between $2 million and $4 million since 2012.
Several of the country’s top drug manufacturers and suppliers gave to Brookings. The think tank’s donors include the Roche Group (donated between $1 million and $2 million since 2012), Sanofi ($125,000 to $250,000) and Amgen ($100,000 to $200,000).

Two foundations connected to the pharmaceutical industry also gave generously. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — which was started by a Johnson & Johnson founder in 1972 — gave between $210,000 and $525,000 to Brookings and an undisclosed amount above $3 million since 2012 to Urban. The foundation for global pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb gave between $55,000 and $125,000 to Brookings.
MetLife, which has some health-related insurance business, gave a combined $300,000 to $750,000 to Brookings in 2013 , 2014 and 2015 .