Life_Long_Dem!
10-22-2009, 04:28 PM
By Dan Eggen
The August recess did little to slow the Washington lobbying frenzy over health-care reform, as insurers, drugmakers and hospitals continued to spend millions to attempt to sway the emerging legislation, according to new disclosure reports filed with Congress.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drugmakers' main trade group, shattered records again by spending nearly $7 million on lobbying from July through September, the quarterly disclosure records show. The outlay brings PhRMA's total so far this year to nearly $20 million, just shy of the group's entire lobbying budget for 2008.
Other big health-care spenders in the third quarter included Pfizer Inc. ($5.42 million); the American Hospital Association ($3.8 million); the American Medical Association ($3.95 million); Amgen Inc. ($3 million); Bayer Corp. ($2.45 million); and America's Health Insurance Plans ($2.4 million).
Many of Washington's broader interest groups have also ramped up their lobbying efforts. The powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is at loggerheads with President Obama on health care, climate change and other key issues, spent a stunning $35 million on lobbying in the third quarter, more than double what it spent during the earlier part of the year.
The seniors group AARP, meanwhile, which has aligned itself with Democrats on health-care reform, spent $15 million on lobbying from January through September.
The deadline for filing lobbying disclosure forms in Congress was midnight Tuesday, so it's too early to calculate aggregate numbers for the health-care and insurance industries. But the two areas combined spent money at the rate of $2 million a day on lobbying through the first half of the year, and the filings so far provide little evidence of a slowdown.
Lobbying disclosure forms, which are filed with the House and Senate, also do not measure advertising, grass-roots organizing and other efforts by interest groups to influence the debate outside Congress or the White House. Total spending on health-care reform ads, for example, surpassed $100 million nearly a month ago, already making it the costliest advocacy issue in U.S. history, according to media industry estimates.
Many trade groups and companies have increased their lobbying as the health reform debate has intensified, the new disclosure records show. AHIP, which has gone to war with the Obama administration in recent weeks, spent nearly 30 percent more in the third quarter than it did in the second; PhRMA, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb and several others also hiked their spending during the time period.
But there were also outliers such as drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co., which dropped its lobbying expenditures from $3.6 million in the second quarter to $2 million in the third, according to its filings.
The impact of lobbying expenditures is always hard to gauge, and the job is made tougher by the complicated politics surrounding health-care reform. Industry groups such as PhRMA, for example, have largely signaled support for reform after cutting deals with the White House, while others such as AHIP have become increasingly opposed to Democratic plans.
Regardless, the roiling debate over health care has provided good business for Washington lobbying firms in an otherwise lackluster year. Many other sectors, including real-estate firms, financial companies and defense contractors, have cut back their lobbying expenditures in a down economy.
Overall lobbying spending has leveled off for the first time in a decade, and there are fewer registered lobbyists in town now than at any time since early in the Bush administration.
By Dan Eggen
The August recess did little to slow the Washington lobbying frenzy over health-care reform, as insurers, drugmakers and hospitals continued to spend millions to attempt to sway the emerging legislation, according to new disclosure reports filed with Congress.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drugmakers' main trade group, shattered records again by spending nearly $7 million on lobbying from July through September, the quarterly disclosure records show. The outlay brings PhRMA's total so far this year to nearly $20 million, just shy of the group's entire lobbying budget for 2008.
Other big health-care spenders in the third quarter included Pfizer Inc. ($5.42 million); the American Hospital Association ($3.8 million); the American Medical Association ($3.95 million); Amgen Inc. ($3 million); Bayer Corp. ($2.45 million); and America's Health Insurance Plans ($2.4 million).
Many of Washington's broader interest groups have also ramped up their lobbying efforts. The powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is at loggerheads with President Obama on health care, climate change and other key issues, spent a stunning $35 million on lobbying in the third quarter, more than double what it spent during the earlier part of the year.
The seniors group AARP, meanwhile, which has aligned itself with Democrats on health-care reform, spent $15 million on lobbying from January through September.
The deadline for filing lobbying disclosure forms in Congress was midnight Tuesday, so it's too early to calculate aggregate numbers for the health-care and insurance industries. But the two areas combined spent money at the rate of $2 million a day on lobbying through the first half of the year, and the filings so far provide little evidence of a slowdown.
Lobbying disclosure forms, which are filed with the House and Senate, also do not measure advertising, grass-roots organizing and other efforts by interest groups to influence the debate outside Congress or the White House. Total spending on health-care reform ads, for example, surpassed $100 million nearly a month ago, already making it the costliest advocacy issue in U.S. history, according to media industry estimates.
Many trade groups and companies have increased their lobbying as the health reform debate has intensified, the new disclosure records show. AHIP, which has gone to war with the Obama administration in recent weeks, spent nearly 30 percent more in the third quarter than it did in the second; PhRMA, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb and several others also hiked their spending during the time period.
But there were also outliers such as drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co., which dropped its lobbying expenditures from $3.6 million in the second quarter to $2 million in the third, according to its filings.
The impact of lobbying expenditures is always hard to gauge, and the job is made tougher by the complicated politics surrounding health-care reform. Industry groups such as PhRMA, for example, have largely signaled support for reform after cutting deals with the White House, while others such as AHIP have become increasingly opposed to Democratic plans.
Regardless, the roiling debate over health care has provided good business for Washington lobbying firms in an otherwise lackluster year. Many other sectors, including real-estate firms, financial companies and defense contractors, have cut back their lobbying expenditures in a down economy.
Overall lobbying spending has leveled off for the first time in a decade, and there are fewer registered lobbyists in town now than at any time since early in the Bush administration.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/health-care-reform/2009/10/health-care_lobbyists_continue.html
The August recess did little to slow the Washington lobbying frenzy over health-care reform, as insurers, drugmakers and hospitals continued to spend millions to attempt to sway the emerging legislation, according to new disclosure reports filed with Congress.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drugmakers' main trade group, shattered records again by spending nearly $7 million on lobbying from July through September, the quarterly disclosure records show. The outlay brings PhRMA's total so far this year to nearly $20 million, just shy of the group's entire lobbying budget for 2008.
Other big health-care spenders in the third quarter included Pfizer Inc. ($5.42 million); the American Hospital Association ($3.8 million); the American Medical Association ($3.95 million); Amgen Inc. ($3 million); Bayer Corp. ($2.45 million); and America's Health Insurance Plans ($2.4 million).
Many of Washington's broader interest groups have also ramped up their lobbying efforts. The powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is at loggerheads with President Obama on health care, climate change and other key issues, spent a stunning $35 million on lobbying in the third quarter, more than double what it spent during the earlier part of the year.
The seniors group AARP, meanwhile, which has aligned itself with Democrats on health-care reform, spent $15 million on lobbying from January through September.
The deadline for filing lobbying disclosure forms in Congress was midnight Tuesday, so it's too early to calculate aggregate numbers for the health-care and insurance industries. But the two areas combined spent money at the rate of $2 million a day on lobbying through the first half of the year, and the filings so far provide little evidence of a slowdown.
Lobbying disclosure forms, which are filed with the House and Senate, also do not measure advertising, grass-roots organizing and other efforts by interest groups to influence the debate outside Congress or the White House. Total spending on health-care reform ads, for example, surpassed $100 million nearly a month ago, already making it the costliest advocacy issue in U.S. history, according to media industry estimates.
Many trade groups and companies have increased their lobbying as the health reform debate has intensified, the new disclosure records show. AHIP, which has gone to war with the Obama administration in recent weeks, spent nearly 30 percent more in the third quarter than it did in the second; PhRMA, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb and several others also hiked their spending during the time period.
But there were also outliers such as drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co., which dropped its lobbying expenditures from $3.6 million in the second quarter to $2 million in the third, according to its filings.
The impact of lobbying expenditures is always hard to gauge, and the job is made tougher by the complicated politics surrounding health-care reform. Industry groups such as PhRMA, for example, have largely signaled support for reform after cutting deals with the White House, while others such as AHIP have become increasingly opposed to Democratic plans.
Regardless, the roiling debate over health care has provided good business for Washington lobbying firms in an otherwise lackluster year. Many other sectors, including real-estate firms, financial companies and defense contractors, have cut back their lobbying expenditures in a down economy.
Overall lobbying spending has leveled off for the first time in a decade, and there are fewer registered lobbyists in town now than at any time since early in the Bush administration.
By Dan Eggen
The August recess did little to slow the Washington lobbying frenzy over health-care reform, as insurers, drugmakers and hospitals continued to spend millions to attempt to sway the emerging legislation, according to new disclosure reports filed with Congress.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drugmakers' main trade group, shattered records again by spending nearly $7 million on lobbying from July through September, the quarterly disclosure records show. The outlay brings PhRMA's total so far this year to nearly $20 million, just shy of the group's entire lobbying budget for 2008.
Other big health-care spenders in the third quarter included Pfizer Inc. ($5.42 million); the American Hospital Association ($3.8 million); the American Medical Association ($3.95 million); Amgen Inc. ($3 million); Bayer Corp. ($2.45 million); and America's Health Insurance Plans ($2.4 million).
Many of Washington's broader interest groups have also ramped up their lobbying efforts. The powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is at loggerheads with President Obama on health care, climate change and other key issues, spent a stunning $35 million on lobbying in the third quarter, more than double what it spent during the earlier part of the year.
The seniors group AARP, meanwhile, which has aligned itself with Democrats on health-care reform, spent $15 million on lobbying from January through September.
The deadline for filing lobbying disclosure forms in Congress was midnight Tuesday, so it's too early to calculate aggregate numbers for the health-care and insurance industries. But the two areas combined spent money at the rate of $2 million a day on lobbying through the first half of the year, and the filings so far provide little evidence of a slowdown.
Lobbying disclosure forms, which are filed with the House and Senate, also do not measure advertising, grass-roots organizing and other efforts by interest groups to influence the debate outside Congress or the White House. Total spending on health-care reform ads, for example, surpassed $100 million nearly a month ago, already making it the costliest advocacy issue in U.S. history, according to media industry estimates.
Many trade groups and companies have increased their lobbying as the health reform debate has intensified, the new disclosure records show. AHIP, which has gone to war with the Obama administration in recent weeks, spent nearly 30 percent more in the third quarter than it did in the second; PhRMA, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb and several others also hiked their spending during the time period.
But there were also outliers such as drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co., which dropped its lobbying expenditures from $3.6 million in the second quarter to $2 million in the third, according to its filings.
The impact of lobbying expenditures is always hard to gauge, and the job is made tougher by the complicated politics surrounding health-care reform. Industry groups such as PhRMA, for example, have largely signaled support for reform after cutting deals with the White House, while others such as AHIP have become increasingly opposed to Democratic plans.
Regardless, the roiling debate over health care has provided good business for Washington lobbying firms in an otherwise lackluster year. Many other sectors, including real-estate firms, financial companies and defense contractors, have cut back their lobbying expenditures in a down economy.
Overall lobbying spending has leveled off for the first time in a decade, and there are fewer registered lobbyists in town now than at any time since early in the Bush administration.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/health-care-reform/2009/10/health-care_lobbyists_continue.html