WASHINGTON, D.C. — Medical devices makers are adamant that U.S. health care needs to be fixed. They’re equally adamant that their industry shouldn’t have to pay for the fixing, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Pressed by lobbyists, White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood behind its private deal with their industry to block congressional efforts to get more costs savings than the $80 billion to which it already has agreed, the New York Times said. Drug industry lobbyists were reacting to a House health reform measure that would enable the government to negotiate drug prices and demand additional rebates from drug makers, the N.Y. Times said.
Health care lobbyists are blitzing lawmakers to shape a trillion-dollar health-care overhaul that will affect most Americans, according to the Wall Street Journal. And while the legislators take a summer break, starting Friday, interest groups are urging members to snare their Congresspeople this month at their home districts, the Journal said.
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On Tuesday, the health insurance industry said it is launching an effort to send insurance company employees to public meetings this month to rebut criticism of their industry from Congress and the White House, the Journal said. “Attacking our community will not help get anyone covered, nor will it help our country bend the cost curve and make care more affordable for working families and small businesses,” Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, at a media teleconference on Tuesday morning.
“These are the issues that should be the focus of a national conversation this summer. That is what the country expected. Not politics as usual, but an effort to forge the consensus that will be necessary to get reform passed,” Ignagni said. The health insurers association spent $1.9 million lobbying during the second quarter alone, according to Senate disclosure records, the Journal said.
At the Washington office of Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who leads the Senate Finance Committee— one of the main shapers of health reform legislation — lobbyists begin lining up before 7:30 a.m. to get a meeting with the senator’s staff, the Journal said. The senator is receiving so many requests for meetings — 30 to 40 a week — that interns are helping conduct some of the meetings, some of which are being booked on Saturdays, according to the Journal.
What has caused the lobbying surge is President Obama has left the details of health care reform to Congress, the Journal said. That means special interests have a lot of lawmakers to badger. It also makes any legislation is open to death by a thousand cuts, said the Journal, which created an interactive graphic to show lobbyists’ spending on their health reform efforts. The graphic is based on numbers from the Center for Responsive Politics, which first published its own “health care cheat sheet” on health care lobbying costs on July 9.
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The mobilization of lobbyists during August already is turning ugly for Congress members, leading to the hanging of a congressman’s effigy outside his office, angry shouting-downs by constituents and raucous debates with critics at town hall meetings, according to the Los Angeles Times. Fanned by talk radio and conservative advocacy groups, the bitter intensity of the debate is a reminder of how hard it will be for Democrats to sell voters on a broad health overhaul even though they control majorities in the House and Senate, the L.A. Times said.
More stories worth a read:
- Health care’s misbehaving dog (Forbes)
- ChemBioConnect crowdsources scientists for better meds (DigitalBeat)
- Blood procedure allows kidney transplants, can help minorities (CNN)
- Schering and Merck are settling Vitorin suits (New York Times)
- Quick tests for the flu found often innacurate (New York Times)
- Lilly to broaden income eligibility for its medications (Indianapolis Star)
- Restructuring charges hit Kendle in second quarter (Business Courier of Cincinnati)
- Unsealed papers proves Wyeth was behind articles (Covering Health blog)
- MediSens aims to restore diabetics’ sensation, balance(mobihealthnews)
- Sagent Pharmaceuticals announces launch of first two oncolytics products: fludarabine phosphate for injection, USP, and epirubicin hydrochloride injection (PRNewswire)
- More research links cardiovascular health to Alzheimer’s (Wall Street Journal Health blog)
- Survey finds nearly half of health care providers unsure of what patients owe at time of service (Becker’s Hospital Review)
- Salesforce.com dips its toe into electronic medical records (Wall Street Journal Health blog)
- More than half of ER nurses have been assaulted on job (USA Today)
