When Republicans take up Obamacare next year, their fiercest opponent may be healthcare lobbyists.
The American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals, two massive industry lobby groups, fired a warning shot at Republicans Tuesday. The message was clear: Leave Obamacare Alone until you have a replacement that restores the industry’s sources of government money.
The hospital lobbies published their report Tuesday and held a conference call with reporters and hospital executives. “When I first heard ‘repeal and replace,’ my gut just kind of knotted up,” one North Carolina hospital executive said on the call.
“A repeal and replace initiative is frightening,” Anderson said. “To think about going through another dramatic, sudden, rapid change for an organization that teeters on being able to stay alive and provide services is gut-wrenching. For us to be able to meet the needs of this community, we need to know what the replacement’s going to be.”
Hospitals last year spent $94 million lobbying Washington last year, about the same as the Securities and Investment industry, and more than real estate, commercial banks or defense industries, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
President Obama and Democrats have spent the past 8 years arguing that Obamacare was a broadside to the special interests, and that efforts to repeal it were corporate shilling.
Hospitals have fought many efforts to derail Obamacare (and the law has helped big hospitals while driving their smaller competitors out of business). The drug lobby supported the bill during its debate. Insurers have fought to save it in court.
If Obamacare repeal fizzles out, Obama may once again have health-sector lobbyists to thank.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
