Healthcare lobbying spend second only to financial services industry

As FierceHealthcare readers know--or would guess--healthcare lobbyists are doing some record spending in an effort to see that reform goes their way. Now, a new analysis offers a deeper view of just how much spending that is.

According to the analysis, the healthcare sector gave $90.7 million, or 54 percent of the total it contributed, to various Democrats. Republicans got $76.6 million. This is the first time since 1992 that the sector has given more to Dems than Republicans. The total amount, $167.7 million, has jumped upward from the $123.7 million spent in 2004.

For this year, the gap between the GOP and Democratic contributions is bigger, with Democrats getting 60 percent of the $5.4 million contributed by healthcare interests.

This spending is second only to the financial services sector, which has spent a staggering $3.4 billion on lobbying since 1998.

To learn more about this spending:
- read this Capital Eye blog entry [1]

Related Articles:
Pharmas, device firms spend $182M on lobbying [2]
Healthcare industry leads in campaign contributions [3]