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Guardian.co.uk – The Tories were accused last night of being bankrolled by a City ‘wolf pack’ after it emerged that the party was receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds from hedge fund managers who have been making vast sums of money from plunging bank shares.

After the Financial Services Authority had, in effect, barred the controversial practice of short-selling bank stocks and the Treasury was forced to draw up a rescue package for Bradford and Bingley, it emerged that a small group of City financiers who have made fortunes from falling stock markets are paying at least £50,000 a year to the party.

Their donations entitle them to membership of an elite supporters club called the Leaders Group, which bestows invitations to functions attended by David Cameron, something that has prompted allegations that the Tory leader is supporting ‘cash for access’. Last night, in an attempt to quell a mounting row over the party’s finances ahead of this week’s conference, the party put details of the Leaders Group on its website.

It has also emerged the Conservatives have continued to receive money from Lord Laidlaw, a Monaco-based tax exile who has given the party more than £3m. One donation came after the fact that he had taken part in orgies with prostitutes was exposed in the tabloids.

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Tags: appropriate-technology, ccm, credit-losses, global-economy, housing-market, peril, top-businessmen

BusinessWeek – For managed-care organizations (MCOs), which footed the bill for roughly 34% of U.S. health care spending in 2007, health-care reform presents uncertainty and opportunity. Proposals now being debated in Washington and the different states aren’t affecting near-term business, says Phillip Seligman, a Standard & Poor’s equity analyst who follows MCOs. Nor are MCOs currently incorporating reform proposals into their guidance for 2008 or beyond.

Nevertheless, payers are expecting at least incremental changes to the system, given the level of concerns about spiraling health-care costs and growing lack of access to affordable health insurance. On this, a panel of Wall Street analysts concurred at a recent conference on health-care reform sponsored by the Center for Studying Health System Change (CSHSC).

Because they aren’t sure how reforms will play out, MCOs are hedging their bets by diversifying into new markets and product lines that offer a wide range of coverage and pricing options. Many of these products are designed to appeal to price-sensitive small-group and individual buyers. MCOs traditionally considered these to be modest niche markets at best, but now view them as important for future growth, particularly if reforms initially focus on getting coverage for the uninsured, as is currently expected from the political rhetoric surrounding the issue.

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Tags: brian-nelson, lipson, new-york-mercantile, peril, silicon-valley-company, traditional-lenders