Healthcare lobbyists: 6 for each member of Congress

Here's something that might have slipped passed while you were postponing the weekend by working so very late Friday night.

First, to state the obvious: In the 50 states, everyone has two senators and one House member representing them in Washington. Those members of Congress are presumably back home now getting an earful in public meetings from both sides about the hot summer's hottest issue, the broad healthcare reform legislation favored by President Obama, who was going to bring folks together.

There was much talk from the same two sides all last week about packing of those local get-togethers that Investor's Business Daily so deliciously calls "clown hall meetings." Supporters and opponents charged that the other side was busing in adherents and packing the sessions, and even being anti-American with their dissent.

The president, who held three healthcare talk-fests himself, also complained about the media focusing mainly on the disorderly sessions. How strange! That would be like the media focusing on one lousy plane crash instead of the thousands of safe flights each day. Or residents gossiping about a neighborhood divorce, instead of the dozens of happy nearby marriages.

Anyway, here are some startling lesser-known facts, pulled together by two diligent Bloomberg News reporters, Lizzie O'Leary and Jonathan Salant:

Every one of those 534 members of Congress now has six (6!) lobbyists working on them -- and that's just for healthcare.

A total of 3,300 lobbyists have registered to drive the sizzling healthcare issue in Washington -- three times the brigade of lobbyists representing the entire defense industry.

And three more healthcare lobbyists join the ongoing fray every day.

They reported spending more than $234 million massaging and informing and persuading those legislators during the first six months of this year, way more than a million bucks a day, seven days a week.

So, whatever your side, who do you suppose will still be standing -- and talking -- when the congressional recess is over and the elected representatives return to their safe homes inside the Beltway?

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Getty Images

Comments

[carly]

And people think that this debate is really driven by the shouting at the town hall meetings. There is an interesting post on the insurance industry's manipulation of the debate at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588

[carly]

Lobbyists should have been banned before the process began. There is an interesting related quote at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588

[CarolT]

And Obama himself is nothing but the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's slave. His Transition Team, the advisors who "begin implementing signature policy initiatives immediately after they are sworn in" included William V. Corr, executive director of the anti-smoking group Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, as a Lead for the Department of Health and Human Services Team. Corr was chief counsel and policy director from 1998 to 2000 for then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. He "joined the anti-tobacco lobby in 2000, and among other things has lobbied Congress to give the Food and Drug Administration, an HHS agency, the authority to regulate tobacco. An Obama transition official said Mr. Corr, a registered lobbyist until September, is recused from working on tobacco issues." (Obama Advisers May Signal New Approach to Health Policy. Wall Street Journal, Nov. 19, 2008.) As if Corr's involvement could be anything other than "tobacco-related," because of this corrupt movement's absolute dependence upon the use of scientific fraud! Could you imagine Obama appointing a tobacco executive to such a position, and then getting away with proclaiming that he's "recused from working on tobacco issues?" Corr is also a board member of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a health fascist cesspool. Nancy-Ann DeParle has been a board member of the health fascist Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Nicole Lurie is one of its stooges. Jeffrey P. Koplan is a former Director of the Centers for Disease Control.

Corr has received over $1 million from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to lobby for FDA regulation of tobacco: Educating key audiences about FDA regulation of tobacco products May 2007 - May 2008, ID# 60382, $743,464 To William V. Corr, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. (accessed July 28, 2007); Educating key audiences about FDA regulation of tobacco products. $350,000, Jul 1, 2008 to Feb 28, 2009, ID# 64348; to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, William V. Corr Project Director. Corr's "key audience" now consists of President Obama! Corr also received $300,000 from RWJF for "Legal support for public health plaintiff intervenors in appeal of the Department of Justice tobacco suit," Feb 1, 2007 to Mar 31, 2009, ID# 60001; and $450,000 for something called "Development of a business plan," May 15, 2008 to May 14, 2009, ID# 64035.

[JohnnyFreedom]

Attach the lobbyists to a nice oak tree. The only lobbyists should be American tax payers, all others need to be eleminated.

[Miki]

And then tell me that americans lives in "democracy"???
It's a lie,the american society is made only for big profits of hands of people.