The current economic slump lumbers along, but one industry is booming: Health-care lobbying.
Over 180 groups have registered to help shape the new health care law, prompting CNNMoney to explain that “President Obama’s drive for health care reform has been a years-long boon for lobbyists”:
Over 2009 and 2010, $1.06 billion was spent on lobbying, with more than $500 million spent on lobbying the issue in each year.… In addition, lobbyists for 1,251 organizations disclosed that they worked on health care reform in 2009 and 2010.… The number of individual lobbyists who reported working on health related legislation last year hit 3,154.…
Bad or good?
Well, it’s to be expected. The more the federal government involves itself in any domain of life, the more reactions to expect from those engaged in that domain. And it’s not just big business petitioning government for favors or forbearance or simply an ongoing “in.” Unions and associations and non-profits are onboard, too. After all, a simple line or even a word in a law can make or break a concern.
Besides, if our legislators insist on regulating every aspect of life, they’ll need all the help they can get. But since that “help” inevitably emanates from ever larger legions of back-slapping lobbyists huddling with glad-handing politicians, it’d be better if Congress left well enough alone.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
3 replies on “One Industry’s Boom Time”
It would be best if this monstrosity was left on the ash-heap of history along with the Obama presidency. I am earnestly looking for the Reagan II foil to the failed Carter II Administration. Palin? Cain? Certainly NOT Gingrich, Romney, Huckabee and the like. First, though, health care must be defunded and scrapped. If it’s not, we become slaves to the Obama/Democrat (with some elitist Republicans thrown in) Party master and America is OVER.
The health care law is doing brain surgery with a hatchet. Probably not going to yeild results that people will like. Of course the solution then will be to have government “fix it”. Since the ability of the private sector to do anything will by then have been destroyed.
The Chinese tell a parable of a farmer who labored mightily for days going out in his fields and pulling on the tips of each rice plant. Each night he would collapse in bed exhausted but satisfied, telling his wife how he was helping the rice grow. After weeks of this exhausting labor, pretty much all of his rice crop was withering and dying.
Must have been haters.
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