Healthcare lobbying effort now the largest in American history
As Chris Matthews might put it, today’s big number is 3,300.
That’s the number of lobbyists actively working on the single issue of health care reform, each coming to work every day armed with information, gossip, pre-written legislative language and, of course, money.
Lots of money.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a watchdog agency that tracks the amount of money being spent to influence legislation, a record 263 million dollars have gone into the lobbying efforts aimed at impacting on the battle to reform the nation’s health care system.
That’s three times more than what has been spent this year by the defense industry, the one time granddaddy of all Washington lobbyists.
It gets better for the health industry. In a ‘perfect storm’ of timing, the health care influence machine is getting more bang for its buck as other industries, challenged by the current economic environment, have been forced to cut back on their lobbying budgets. CRP research indicates that revenues at a large number of major Washington lobbying firms dropped by over 10 percent in the first half of 2009 as home building, defense, and transportation industries have all trimmed their lobbying budgets. Even the number of registered lobbyists in Washington is down almost 20% from a year ago – none from the ranks of the health care industry ambassadors.
With six health care industry lobbyists for each member of Congress, experts agree that the current effort to influence the outcome of reform legislation outpaces the previous record set in 1986 when the corporate mother of all battles was waged over tax reform during the Reagan Administration.
Is it working? Health insurance companies have held the public option at bay while accomplishing a mandated system that will bring millions of new customers to their doors. And while the insurers may have agreed to include those with pre-existing conditions, they will do so at a premium charge that could find some paying four times as much for their insurance as others. Big Pharma has also come out nicely, agreeing to a deal with the White House that will have them contributing $80 billion in give-backs over the next ten years versus the substantially higher number many in Congress believe would be appropriate. Even hospitals and doctors have come out with some big victories.
Of course the lobbyists are winning. But then, they always do.
With the end of the great health care debate of 2009 now in sight, one would expect the armies of influence peddlers to be looking for their next issue or their next job. Not so. Health care related industries have been the most active lobbying force in Washington dating back to 2006 and will continue to hold this position for many years to come. Indeed, it is after a bill is signed into law by the president that the real influence peddling begins as various administrative departments get to work writing the regulations that will execute on the legislative plan. This is where the rubber hits the road when it comes to the true impact on health care providers, and nobody knows this better than the lobbyists.
How did this happen? What would America’s founders think about the armies of men and women paid big bucks to tell our elected officials what to do when our leaders are supposed to be listening to ‘we, the people?’
You might be surprised to discover that this was nothing new to the Founders. While many believe that lobbying is a modern day invention spawned by elected government officials under daily pressure to raise large sums of money to support their next campaign, the truth is that the process has been underway since the beginning days of the United States of America. And it was just as effective then as it is today.
Lobbying is rooted in the U.S. Constitution which prohibits Congress from making laws that restrict the people’s right to “petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” And lobbying has been around since the nation’s earliest days. During the First Congress, Pennsylvania Sen. William Maclay wrote in his diary that New York merchants employed “treats, dinners, attentions” to delay passage of a tariff bill.
Via Sunlight Foundation
The art of lobbying is, however, a constant work in progress. Prior to the downfall of the notorious lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, members of Congress and administration players were treated to food, drink, great tickets to sporting events and trips on plush corporate jets. After Abramoff was convicted of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials, we got the 2008 Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, a law that pretty much wiped out all those terrific, corporate funded goodies.
While the Honest Leadership Act (yes, I hear you out there laughing at the title) has cut down on some of the best perks of winning elected office, it hasn’t put a dent in the influence of the legions of lobbyists– and it won’t.
So long as we have a Supreme Court poised to take the handcuffs off direct corporate contributions to political campaigns…so long as American campaigns are funded by private donation rather than public money with equal amounts available to all candidates (the way it is done in the UK)…so long as raising money remains the number one priority of elected officials who wish to continue being elected, thereby relegating their constituents to somewhere well down the list of priorities, learn to live with the lobbyists.
It’s the American Way.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jay Sherman. Jay Sherman said: Rick Ungar – The Policy Page – Healthcare lobbying effort now the …: It gets better for the health industry. .. http://bit.ly/2JfEvS [...]
If there was any grand commentary on the lobbying power of big industries in this entire debate, it was when the White House made its deal with PhRMA to undercut any sort of price negotiation on drugs and then acted like it didn’t make the deal.
It made a deal which severely hurt consumers and which most people had no real reason to be against, solely to neutralize the power of the gigantic lobby. And Obama went against his own campaign pledge of televising any such negotiations. It was probably the lowest moment of the new presidency when it comes to domestic affairs.
Actually, the deal wasn’t really that bad. I think he could have done a bit better, but the $80 billion will help a lot of seniors when they hit the donut hole in Part D Medicare drug benefit.
In response to another comment. See in context »I don’t recall Obama saying he would televise all negotiations during the campaign. If he did, he must have been smoking something. Who, in their right mind, would sit down with the president to make a deal on anything in front of a TV camera. I wouldn’t. If this happened, nothing could ever get done!
The $80 billion is really nothing compared to what would’ve happened if we simply would’ve done the policies that the drug industry was fighting. Heck, the industry wouldn’t have made the deal if it wasn’t saving them a ton of money versus the alternative. Here’s the deal laid out in the memo on it:
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/98654/original.jpg
The fact is, we would’ve been way better off not making the deal. The only reason it was made was to stop PhRMA from lobbying against the bill – which is a direct demonstration of their power that the most popular President in a long time had to succumb to them.
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m already pretty familiar with the agreement. I can’t quite see why you would think we would have been better off without it. I disagree that the only reason for it was to stop Big Pharma from lobbying against a bill. I do agree the agreement could have been a bit better, but I think it is a dramatic overstatement to say that we would have been better of without it.
In response to another comment. See in context »What, exactly, would you have preferred in any agreement with the drug companies?
The agreement was literally a quid-pro-quo, that phrma will back the white house if it guarantees certain things for phrma. We could’ve gotten way better simply by legislating it. Yet we didn’t. Why not? Because we were scared to death of them, and as Sen. Bernie Sanders has said many times before, they’re the one lobby that never loses.
In response to another comment. See in context »Obama’s campaign statements regarding televised health care negotiations: “But what we will do is, we’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process.”
He said it several times – http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/517/health-care-reform-public-sessions-C-SPAN/
He wasn’t smoking anything, Rick. What he was doing was lying through his fucking teeth. And, as usual, progressives fell for it. I mean, really – his people pulled this right from the movie “Dave” for Christ’s sake! Not that it would be a bad idea, it’s just that it would have to have been sincere to be a good one.
It could have been a great strategy. What wuld the corporations do? If they refuse to show up, the Dems could have raked them over the coals for refusing to negotiate. If they show up and try to make some kind of deal like Pharma got, the public could watch as their President decides what side he’s on. And that’s why it was never going to happen – The President chose his side before he was elected – and he’s not on ours.