Study: Health Care & Insurance Dominate the Washington Lobby

Non-partisan group, Center for Responsive Politics just broke the recent news about the amount and origin of money passing hands in Washington politics for 2007. What did they discover? Health care and insurance dominated the Washington lobby.

The group also found that an average of $17 million a day was injected into K Street last year (a total of $2.79 billion), blistering past any previous records for total lobby dollars spent in a year.

Which Party Takes the Most Health Care Lobby Dollars?

The question remains, which political party gets the lions' share? The average of the top 15 contributors provides a revealing and surprising fact: Both Democrats and Republicans took equal shares of the bounty. Democrats accounted for 49.7 percent of the share, while Republicans snapped up pretty much the same.

Here are the top dollars, broken down by party contributions for the top 15 lobbyists.

Rank	Lobbyist
1.	AFLAC Inc.	$907,150	53%	47%
2.	New York Life Insurance	$795,794	58%	42%
3.	Blue Cross/Blue Shield	$729,935	55%	45%
4.	Natl Assn/Ins. & Fin. Advisors	$572,750	50%	49%
5.	Independent Ins. Agents	$541,250	40%	60%
6.	Metropolitan Life Insurance	$470,954	63%	37%
7.	American Financial Group	$441,850	2%	98%
8.	Travelers Companies	$425,200	59%	41%
9.	Massachusetts Mutual Life	$420,530	58%	42%
10.	Genworth Financial	$388,858	47%	53%
11.	American International Group	$364,081	64%	36%
12.	United Services Auto Assn.	$348,917	36%	64%
13.	Prudential Financial	$297,758	67%	33%
14.	Liberty Mutual Insurance	$297,486	55%	45%
15.	Council Ins.Agents & Brokers	$288,439	38%	62%

And here's a video of Michael Moore's Sicko screening for lobbyists, illustrating exactly how much health care and insurance lobbyists are interested in the average American. Note: Out of 900 invited, only 11 showed up.

More Info.:

Insurance Journal:
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2008/04/14/89108.htm

OpenSecrets (Center for Responsive Politics)
http://www.opensecrets.org/