Health Industry Lobbying

Matt Yglesias and Ryan Powers have interesting posts on how the health industry has spent vast sums of money to stop health care reform. The lobbying dollars shifts to the party in power. The biggest beneficiaries of been the Blue Dog Democrats.

Overall, the typical Blue Dog has received $63,000 more in campaign contributions from the health-care sector than other House Democrats over the past two decades, according to the CRP analysis. The top three recipients were Rep. Earl Pomeroy (N.D.), with $1.5 million, and Tennessee Reps. Bart Gordon and John Tanner, both of whom collected over $1.2 million from the industry and its employees, according to the data.

The only major health care policy proposal off by Blue Dogs is the trigger. Current private health care would run in it's current state. If the costs become too high then that will "trigger" Congress to respond. The trigger is a stalling tactic and should be treated as such.