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.

Congressional Democrats are finding a way around President Barack Obama’s ban on lobbyist contributions, reports Jonathan Martin in Politico today.

Obama is speaking at a dinner tonight at the Mandarin Hotel for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). In the past this dinner has brought in big lobbyist bucks. But because Obama will be there, the committees won’t be taking lobbyist contributions for the event.

However, lobbyist money will be welcome the next morning at a $5,000-per-head “issues” conference featuring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and a variety of committee chairmen. (We don’t have copies of these invitations in our database. If you have them, please send them to us here.)

Reports Politico:

Obama refuses to appear at fundraising events where lobbyists are allowed to contribute money, so the Democrats can’t collect lobbyists’ cash at Thursday night’s dinner. But since the president won’t be at the morning-after event, congressional Democrats will be free to collect the lobbying dollars then that they couldn’t take the night before.

This seems the very definition of violating the spirit of the lobbyist contribution ban–and the piece quotes some anonymous Democratic sources saying it’s Obama’s fault for not reining the Dems in.

Yet at the same time, more anonymous Democratic insiders are quoted griping because the White House won’t help raise lobbyist cash. One says Obama should be leaning on surrogate organizations to send out fundraising alerts. Another points out that the lobbyist money ban puts the committees in a bind:

“It’s kind of like going to Los Angeles and then excluding the entertainment industry,” said a senior Democrat. “Well, then you’re going to have a lame event.”

Seems like Obama’s getting the worst of both worlds right now. He’s getting the blame both because his lobbyist money ban is too weak–and because he won’t pull out the stops to get lobbyist money.