Hospital lobbying spending down

The Associated Press reports on hospital industry lobbying in the first quarter of 2010.

"American Hospital Association, which represents nearly 5,000 hospitals, spent $3.7 million lobbying the federal government in the first quarter on Medicare, health care reform and a host of other topics," which included "Medicare fraud prevention, a requirement for minimum nurse staffing rations for some Medicare providers and a bill that provides for the application of a consistent part B premium for all Medicare beneficiaries, according to a 34-page lobbying report filed with the clerk of the House of Representatives… The total spent represented a 4 percent increase from what the association spent in the same quarter last year but a 31 percent drop from what it spent in the final quarter of 2009" (6/15).

Meanwhile, "[t]he Federation of American Hospitals spent $790,000 lobbying the federal government in the first quarter, a 16 percent drop from what it spent in both the first and last quarters of 2009," The Associated Press/Bloomberg Businessweek reports in a second article. "The federation, which represents investor-owned community hospital and health system companies," also lobbied on health reform including "topics like medical liability reform and policy proposals that would make health care services pricing more transparent" (6/15).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.