Today the New York Times reports how a physician-owned Texas hospital has been able to win policy favors in the health care reform bill after feting lawmakers and contributing generously to the Democratic Senatorial Committee (DSCC).

Physicians and others affiliated with the Doctors Hospital at Renaissance contributed about a half a million dollars to the DSCC around a reception on March 30 held at the home of Alonzo Cantu, a prominent developer connected the hospital. Another event at Cantu’s home, attended by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in September 2007 brought in at least $800,000 for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. (We don’t have those particular parties in our database–we wish we did! We rely on what we get on invitations from our sources, but always are on the look out for more.)

Meanwhile, the hospital’s PAC, Border Health PAC, contributed $120,000 last election cycle, including some contributions to Republicans.

The hospital has fared well in negotiations over the health care reform bill so far, reports the Times, avoiding suggested restrictions on physician ownership of hospitals. Critics have argued that physician-owned hospitals contribute to uneccessarily high health care spending, since there’s an incentive to overorder tests. (A recent article in The New Yorker singles out the hospital as an example of this phenomenon.)

Here at Party Time, we’re sure that there must be a thousand untold stories just like this one buried in our database of invitations. We can’t dig them all out ourselves–we urge everybody to take a hard look at these events, try connecting some dots, and see what you find out.

0 Comments