It wasn't (just) the insurers who killed Medicare expansion, thank the Hospitals and Physician lobby

[andym]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/15/AR2009121505083.html?hpid=topnews

Hospital, physician lobbyists fought Medicare buy-in plan
By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Four days before the Senate jettisoned the idea of expanding Medicare to younger Americans, a dozen Senate Democrats, including some of the chamber's most liberal members, dispatched a stern letter warning that the proposal would make it harder for elderly patients in parts of the country to find care.

The letter, sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), attests to the effectiveness of a ferocious campaign by influential hospital and physician lobbyists to defeat the idea. And it underscores the difficulty of forging policy and political deals in the warp-speed, supercharged environment in which Congress is trying to reshape the nation's health-care system.

......
In the midst of this intricate dynamic, lobbyists for hospitals and doctors launched a broadside to try to kill the idea, focusing on two groups of Senate Democrats they viewed as most susceptible to their message. The American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals targeted the first group, moderates who already had hinted at reservations about the idea of a broader public insurance alternative for people of all ages. They included Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu (La.) and Bill Nelson (Neb.), and independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), who over the weekend spoke out most forcefully, saying he would oppose the health-care bill if it contained the buy-in.

Some of the most aggressive advocacy by hospitals and the American Medical Association, however, was aimed at the second group of senators, some of them liberals, who believe in public insurance but who had a history of concern about the rates that the traditional Medicare program pays doctors and hospitals in their states. The American Hospital Association sent two e-mail alerts to its members last week, equipping them with statistics and talking points.....

[Laelth]

1. Good to know. Thanks for posting. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[andym]

2. If reconciliation is used to expand Medicare then these lobbies need to be countered. nt.