More than 1,750 companies and organizations hired a total of about 4,525 lobbyists to influence health reform bills in 2009, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity.
The list of firms and groups that worked to put their imprint on legislation is diverse, ranging from healthcare interests and advocacy groups to giant corporations, small businesses, American Indian tribes, religious groups, and universities.
Among industries, 207 hospitals lined up to lobby, followed by 105 insurance companies, and 85 manufacturing companies. Trade, advocacy, and professional organizations trumped them all with 745 registered groups that lobbied on health reform bills.
Data show that the number of lobbyists working Congress on health reform more than doubled throughout 2009 from more than 1,400 in the first three months of the year to nearly 3,700 in the final quarter. According to the Center for Public Integriy, the total number of lobbyists for 2009 reflects a higher number because some of those lobbyists joined the fray only for a portion of the year.
“They cut it. They chopped it. They reconstructed it,” Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University professor of public affairs, said about health reform lobbying. “They didn’t bury it. I don’t think they wanted to.”
The lack of serious cost controls in House and Senate bills are a direct result of health industry lobbying efforts, Zelizer said.
Among the most visible organizations in the halls of Congress, AARP deployed 56 in-house lobbyists and two from outside firms to work the issue on behalf of its members. The pro-business U.S. Chamber of Commerce deployed 47 lobbyists, all but eight from outside firms. The corporate titans who direct the Business Roundtable deployed 40, five from outside firms, and the American Medical Association had 33, 11 from outside firms.
The American Medical Association (AMA), spent $20 million overall in 2009 lobbying Congress on behalf of doctors.
The Center for Public Integrity’s searchable database of 2009 lobbying disclosure records details which companies and organizations lobbied on health reform. It is searchable by sectors (hospitals, insurance, manufacturing, trade associations, etc.) and by individual organizations. It includes the amount each organization spent to lobby on health reform bills, the lobbying firms they hired, and the names of individual lobbyists who took the message to Congress.