Reply #28: Right and that's not all they met with.. [View All]

[Cha]

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"Top aides to President Barack Obama met early and often with lobbyists, Democratic political strategists and other interests with a stake in the administration's national health care overhaul, White House visitor records obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press show.

The AP in early August asked the White House to produce records identifying communications that top Obama aides — including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, senior advisers David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett and Pete Rouse, and 18 others — had with outside interests on health care. The AP in late September narrowed its request to White House visitor records for those officials on health care.

The White House on Wednesday provided AP with 575 visitor records covering the period from Jan. 20, when Obama was inaugurated, through August. The records give the name of each visitor to the White House complex to see people on AP's list, the date of the visit, who they were supposed to see, how many people attended the gathering, and in a sampling of cases, the purpose of the visit. The records do not identify the visitors' employers, say on whose behalf they were there or give any specifics on what was discussed.

The records show a broad cross-section of the people most heavily involved in the health care debate, weighted heavily with those who want to overhaul the system. Among them were Dr. Eliot Fisher, a Dartmouth health researcher who has estimated that nearly one-third of health care dollars are wasted on unneeded services, and Dr. David Himmelstein of Harvard Medical School, who is among the top advocates of a single-payer health care system.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091125/ap_on_bi_ge/us_white_house_health_meetings

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x17508