The Influence Game: Hospices Win $134m In Stimulus

January 28th, 2009|Editor
Congress

The nations largest hospices are pushing hard to ensure that the provision, which would essentially derail the Medicare cut, survives an increasingly partisan congressional debate and makes it to President Barack Obamas desk.

Their effort is just one example of the behind-the-scenes haggling thats shaping the stimulus plan, as diverse groups jockey to make sure their priorities hitch a ride on a remarkably costly measure that Obama considers must-pass legislation.

The hospices have already cleared some major hurdles in the Democratic-controlled Congress, where the House is poised to approve its version of the economic recovery bill – including the provision the hospices are seeking – with a vote scheduled for Wednesday.

Influential lawmakers led by Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the partys House campaign chief, made sure the provision was part of that bill.

“A lot of people who provide end-of-life care told us this was very important,” Van Hollen said Tuesday. “If you dont adequately reimburse hospice care providers, they go out of business and then people lose their jobs.”

Thats the case that hospice advocacy groups have been making to Congress since last spring, when they began fighting a Bush administration-imposed rule they say could cost their industry more than $2 billion over the next five years, and 8,700 jobs in the next year alone.

More recently, they met with Obamas team to press the incoming administration on the issue, said Jonathan Keyserling, an executive at the Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

“Weve had programs close, weve had programs lay off professionals, weve had them shrink their service areas,” Keyserling said. “Our members have a broad outreach to Congress, and it is rare to enter an office where either the staff person or the member themselves has not had hospice care for a member of their family.”

His groups lobbying arm, the Alliance for Care at the End of Life, has blanketed Capitol Hill, spending close to $1 million and employing 10 outside lobbyists last year alone, according to disclosures filed with Congress.

One prominent member of that team was John F. Jonas, a former top aide to Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., and the House Ways and Means Committee. When the bill writers inadvertently left the provision out of the stimulus draft last week, it was Stark, chairman of the committees health panel, who intervened to restore it.

Well-connected Republican lobbyists were enlisted as well, including Candi Wolff, who served as former President George W. Bushs chief liaison to Congress.

The industry and its champions also have been politically active. VITAS employees gave about $100,000 to political candidates over the last two years, the vast majority of that going to Democrats, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, an independent campaign finance research group.

One of the companys founders, Hugh A. Westbrook, who lists himself as the chief executive, donated tens of thousands to Democratic candidates and political action committees over that period, according to forms filed at the Federal Election Commission. The donations included $45,500 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which Van Hollen chairs, and $5,000 to the political action committee of South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat.

Westbrooks wife Carole Shields Westbrook also gave $28,500 to the DCCC, the annual maximum for an individual.

Support for the hospice measure isnt confined to Democrats. Twenty-two Republicans signed onto the legislation last year to delay the rule. But even GOP supporters say it doesnt have a place in the economic recovery package.

“That provision on its own is a good one,” said Michigan Rep. Dave Camp, the top Republican on the Ways and Means panel. But, he added, “It isnt necessarily a stimulative one. Wed like to see this bill, which is being done so quickly, limited to things that really will grow the economy and create jobs.”

Source: ineva