Lobbyists: The Source of Failed Healthcare Reforms? - Essay Sample

Introduction

Healthcare policies have been the subject to influence from lobby groups since the early 1800s. As such, the group shave managed to occasionally change aspects of healthcare reforms like licensing, terms of purchase of goods and services, oversight, and priorities for research. Therefore, this paper argues that lobbyists have contributed to the failure of health reforms for personal gain and time wastage in the implementation of critical health reforms. The paper argues in this direction based on Bill Clinton's Universal Health Care Reforms and 2009-2010 Obama Healthcare Reforms.

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2009-2010 Obama Health Reforms

The primary objective of the Obama health reforms was to introduce changes that would ensure that citizens get public medical insurance and high-quality healthcare at a low price. However, lobby groups like insurance companies, hospitals, and pharmaceuticals objected to the reforms for what was discovered later to be issues of vested interests among the few financial influential people who did not want the reforms to change the cap in the prices of medicine.

For the 2009-2010 Obama Healthcare reforms, insurance, and drug companies through the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the Biotechnology Industry Organization were proactive in lobbying against the reforms (Bell, 2010). They opposed the changes to the extent of giving federal funds to leaders like Senator Mark Baucus and Pat Roberts. They wanted them to ensure that the reforms will not lead to a cap in the prices on the medicines. For example, Senator took $1.5 million for his federal fund from the health sector. He held dinner parties for executives in the health industry (McGreal, 2009). Later in 2009, he held a golfing and fly-fishing weekend at his home in Montana (McGreal, 2009). He charged other lobbyists vast amounts of money to attends. For instance, many people claimed that the events were focussed on influencing the public against the health reforms. The senator denied it. However, eventually, a member that was among the members targeted by the funds released by the insurance and drug reforms admitted that there were efforts to buy their support in opposing the Obama Healthcare Reform (McGreal, 2009).

Although the Obama Healthcare Reforms were eventually passed despite the efforts from the lobby groups, ethical issues like conflict of interest and dishonesty that led to the passing of the reforms to take a long time, For example, the lobby groups were torn between giving a genuine opinion to the public and serving the interest of executives in the health industry from insurance companies, hospitals, and pharmaceuticals who feared that the changes would lead to changes in the cap of the prices of medicine (Oberlander, 2010). Also, although they were approached to state that the funds, dinner parties, fly-fishing, and golfing were meant to persuade them to oppose the Obama healthcare reforms, they decline. Meaning, they were dishonest in their assessment of the impact of the health reforms on the public.

The lobbyist's actions are negative on the healthcare legislation in the United States because they lead the discussion, voting, and implementation of critical healthcare reforms to take a relatively long time. Although it is good to discuss a vital issue whose results will influence a lot of people, the arguments should be based on honesty and facts. However, the lobbyists against the bill had been compromised through money and other material things that prevented them from events and sense of goodwill to the citizens.

Bill Clinton's Universal Healthcare Reforms

President Bill Clinton developed a proposal, through the task force of five hundred members he appointed, for universal health coverage for every citizen. If successful, the reform would have ensured that every employer provides medical coverage for every employee. That was to be covered and financed by the payroll taxes to be delivered through primary health care organizations. Also, the unemployed were to be paid for by the government in their respective health maintenance organization.

In the year 1994, when President Bill Clinton was to launch the universal Health Care Reforms, it was then reflected that the primary concern of the President and his allies that the power of the president will continuously be lower in his first months in the office which presumably meant that it would even be harder in the few coming years (Bell, 2010). The main oppositions to such reforms were the political belief system, which was characterized by observing the traditions and American value, libertarians, and the health insurance industry (Clemens, 2014). They prolonged the implementation of universal health care as the company introduced a television ad which was with the main aim of informing the entire public to reject the plan. The Democrats that were chosen to unite the nation in the implementation of the program continuously offered several strategies to ensure the failure of the programs. Hillary Clinton, a wife to the President herself, was triggered to head a task force congress where she sold the plan of implementation which led to the significant blow to the failure of the proposal (Landers, & Sehgal, 2004). Later in the year 1994, the health coverage bill was declared dead by the Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell.

Mainly lobbying brought to the failure of the Universal Healthcare Bill that led to lengthy discussions. In this process, ethical issues are addressed, such as conflicts of interests and corruption. For instance, the groups were majorly concerned with informing the public to resist the plans for personal interests, where they created a television ad to enhance their campaign. Hillary Clinton, who was supposed to be a whistle-blower to ensure such was implemented, she was involved in selling the plans to help those in opposition to find strategies to oppose it.

Therefore in this context, the lobbyists' actions are deemed to be negative. They led to the failure of the program, which was mainly designed to provide coverage to most of the employees and other people in general. Though such was to involve some discussions before implementing, they would have considered the needs of the citizens to be provided for health cover which on the one hand can boost morale because the implementation was to have a different number of benefits. The lobbying mainly was due to the personal interests of the few because of their material possession.

Conclusion

In conclusion, lobbyists have contributed to the failure of health reforms for personal gain and time wastage in the implementation of critical health reforms. Therefore, for successful implementation, those involved should observe high ethical conduct to put into consideration the benefits the changes will have to the broader population. They should also look for means to ensure that the implementation process takes a shorter time to allow for the planning.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 2057 Bell, J. E. (2010, February 24). Analysis: Health Lobbyists' Powerful Impact On Reform Bills. Retrieved from Kaiser Health News: https://khn.org/news/cpi-health-lobbying/

Clemens, A. C. (2014). All politics is local, but lobbying is federal and local: the validity of LDA data. Business & Politics, 16(2), 267-289. https://doi.org/10.1515/bap-2013-0017

McGreal, C. (2009, October 1). Revealed: millions spent by lobby firms fighting Obama health reforms . Retrieved from The Guardian : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/01/lobbyists-millions-obama-healthcare-reform

Landers, S. H., & Sehgal, A. R. (2004). Health care lobbying in the United States. American Journal of Medicine, 116(7), 474. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2003.10.037

Oberlander, J. (2010). Long Time Coming: Why Health Reform Finally Passed. Health Affairs, 29(6), 1112-1116. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2010.0447