Lobbyists Fight Last Big Plans to Cut Health Care Costs

   The health care debate has taken several months, and now lobbyists are fighting over which bill stays, or which bill goes. Currently, the healthcare costs over the laast 20 years have doubled to about 16% of the economy, and is not going down. In order to slow the growth of healthcare spending, economists are now trying to end the income tax exemption for employer- paid health insurance, but this will negatively hurt workers that already have substantial benefit plans. Over the debate of throwing out bills and keeping some, the ones that seem to have survived the carnage do not antagonize any organized interest. The survivors include voluntary efficiency measures that encourage the coordination of medical records, and disseminating information comparing the effectiveness of treatments and various pilot projects. (Sharing techniques) In order to lower the opposition to the health care debate, the White House and the Senate Finance Committee have established deals with lobbyists.  For example, Sen. Max Baucus (D. Montana) reached an agreement with that drug industry for its companies to contribute $80 billion over 10years in reduction to their government payments. Many democrats would like to have government negotiate for lower prices for Medicare drugs it buys, but Mr. Baucus agreement to limit the industries costs excludes such negotiations. The drug industry’s lobbyists are attempting to ensure that Medicare cannot negotiate either.