On one end of Pennsylvania Avenue yesterday, administration staffers were busy making preparations for an event that will likely determine whether comprehensive health care reform goes forward. And on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, their counterparts in Congress were busy making the case for why it should.
Will legislation that expands health insurance coverage also bring down the cost of medical care? That question has been driving the political conversation over reform in the last few days, as much as at an time before. And I'll have more to say on it shortly. For now, though, I wanted to note the intersection with another storyline: The influence of lobbyists who represent the health care industry.
Over the weekend, in a terrific piece of reporting, Robert Pear of the New York Times got a hold of an e-mail that went out from a lobbyist representing the biotech giant Genentech to members of Congress. The e-mail urged that members read statements into the record, hyping the importance of biotech to the nation's economy. Forty-two House members, split almost equally between the parties, did just that, sometimes lifting the words precisely.
The words didn't actually affect the outcome of legislation. But they are emblematic of the type of power that the drug industry--and, more generally, various stakeholders in the health care business--wield. And that power comes at the expense of the public interest.
It sounds like the insurers aren't too keen on the insurance company tax Max Baucus is now flirting with for his Finance Committee compromise:
Insurers and many Republicans in Congress oppose the fees, saying they would be passed on to families and employers who buy insurance. Robert E. Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, said the fees would “make coverage less affordable.”
Ed Kilgore is managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, and a frequent contributor to a variety of political journals.
