Here's a panoramic view, courtesy NPR, of the lobbyists attending Congress' recent health care debates. Some have been identified and some have self-identified.
Here's
a follow-up from NPR on the photo and about the lobbying efforts
Quote:
Between 1998 and 2008, the number of registered lobbyists on health care more than doubled, to 3,627, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The statistic doesn't include players who don't engage in lobbying as defined by federal law — among them, grass-roots organizers, producers of TV campaigns and former members of Congress who remain in Washington as senior advisers to corporate clients.
Looking For A Return On Investment
Spending on lobbying jumped even higher over the past decade. Organizations lobbying on health care spent $484.4 million in 2008, more than two and a half times the spending in 1998.
Why spend so much? Three words: return on investment. While a drug company might spend a few million dollars lobbying, it stands to gain, or lose, billions in the outcome.
One big example: the 2003 Medicare drug legislation, under which Medicare began covering prescription drugs. One provision shifted poor, elderly consumers from Medicaid to Medicare — more bluntly, from a program where the government can negotiate with drug companies over prices, to a program where the new legislation prohibited such negotiations.
Most estimates find that the Medicaid-to-Medicare shift was worth billions of dollars for the drugmakers. Meanwhile, the Center for Responsive Politics puts the pharmaceutical industry's 2003 lobbying expenditures at $126.1 million.
|
NPR still on my eye-rolling and groaning list for the frequent subtext/ lack of context/ propaganda aspects to their ham reporting, but this was a bit of the okay. Of course NPR remains mostly mum on single-payer as being widely supported by the general public, and the whole "we won't call it torture" bullshit-
Aw, now I got myself going all ranty.
Let's all go to the lobby(ists), and snap a pic
Linear Mode
