Health Politics

Overview

• Politics (Health Affairs topic page)
•  William Weissert and Carol Weissert. Governing Health: The Politics of Health Policy. 4th ed.. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. 395 pp. $35.00. paper

Executive Branch

• President
• Presidential Staff. See Office of the President for links to various Executive Office of the President agencies.

Bureaucracy

• Cabinet Agencies. See Cabinet Agencies for links to all Cabinet agencies with health-related activities.
  
• Independent Agencies. See Independent Agencies and Federal Advisory Groups for links to all independent federal agencies and advisory groups with health-related activities.
  
• Political Appointees
• Civil Servants

Congress

• Overview
  • Appendix A – The Congressional Budget Process (Alliance for Health Reform)

• Senate. See Senatefor links to Senate leadership and all health-related committees. HELP and Finance are the principal committees dealing with major health policy issues such as Medicare, Medicaid and employer-provided health benefits.
  • Senate Leadership
  • Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee
  • Senate Finance Committee
• House. See House of Representatives for links to House leadership and all health-related committees. Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce are the principal committees dealing with major health policy issues such as Medicare, Medicaid and employer-provided health benefits.

• • House Leadership
  • Ways and Means Committee
  • Energy and Commerce Committee
    
• Joint Committees. See Joint Committees for links.
  
  • Joint Economic Committee.
  • Joint Committee on Taxation. Analysts at this committee estimate whether changes in tax law will raise or decrease revenue.
• Congressional Agencies. See Congressional Agencies for links.
  
  • Congressional Budget Office
  • MedPAC
  • Congressional Research Service

Federal Judiciary. See Federal Judicial Branch for basic links to structure/organization of federal judiciary. See Kaiser Health News, Supreme Court, for news about the Supreme Court.

State Government. See State Government for basic links to structure/organization of state governments. State Health Policy Research includes links to policy research organizations that specialize in state-level health policy issues.

• Overview
  • State/Local Issues-California (Health Affairs topic page)
  • State/Local Issues (Health Affairs topic page)

• Executive Branch. See State Executive Branch for basic links to health-related state executive branch agencies.
  
• Legislative Branch. See State Legislative Branch for basic links to health-related state legislative branch committees.
  

Local Government. See Local Government for basic links to structure/organization of local governments.

Interest Groups

• Lobbying
  • Federal Election Commission
  • OpenSecrets.org
  • LobbySearch.com
  • Lobbyists.info
  • Influence Explorer
  • The BLT: The Blog of LegalTimes. Law and lobbying in the nation’s capital.
  • Buying ‘Political Intelligence’ Can Pay Off Big for Wall Street (Wall Street Journal, 1/18/13). The political-intelligence business has expanded rapidly over a decade as government decisions have come to play a growing role for some on Wall Street. Investors spend more than $400 million a year for such intelligence, according to Integrity Research Associates, which follows the research industry. Its founder, Michael Mayhew, said hedge funds tell him the “single largest source of gains for them has been what’s going on in Washington.”

• Health Insurance Industry
  • America’s Health Insurance Plans. AHIP is the “nation’s largest health insurer trade group” including large insurers such as Aetna Inc., Humana Inc., Cigna Corp. and UnitedHealth Group.
  • Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association
• Physicians
  • American Medical Association. With about 250,000 members, the AMA is America’s largest physician organization. While it serves as an umbrella group for 180 medical societies, it “does not speak for all doctors.” NY Times reporter Robert Pear concludes that “while not the political behemoth it once was, the association probably has more influence than any other group in the health care industry.”  “The group has historically had a strong lobbying operation, supplemented by generous campaign donations. Since the 2000 election cycle, its political action committee has contributed $9.8 million to Congressional candidates, according to data from the Federal Election Commission and the Center for Responsive Politics. Republicans got more than Democrats in the four election cycles before 2008, when 56 percent went to Democrats.”
  • National Physicians Alliance. NPA is “a newer, smaller, younger association of doctors. It sees the interests of doctors as inseparable from the interests of patients.”
  • Physicians for a National Health Program. PNHPsupports a single-payer system of insurance, in which a single public agency would pay for health services, but most care would still be delivered by private doctors and hospitals.”
• Hospitals
• Pharma
• Other Health Industry
• Business.See Payers for basic links to business organizations related to health policy.
• Labor. See Labor Groups for basic links to labor organizations related to health policy.
• Consumers. See Consumer Groups for basic links to consumer-oriented health-related advocacy organizations.

Electoral Participants

• Campaigners
• Political Parties

Academics, Researchers and Consultants

• Policy Research Organizations. See Policy Research Organizations for a list of non-academically-based organizations doing health policy-related research and analysis.
• Universities. See Policy Research Centers for academically-based centers and programs doing health policy-related research and analysis.
• Foundations. Non-profit foundations have legal restrictions on lobbying. However, foundation-funded research often provides the raw material for advocacy efforts in policy debates. See Foundations for a list of major national and regional foundations that provide funding for health policy research.

The Media

• Appendix C – Covering Health Issues for TV and Radio (Alliance for Health Reform)
• Media (Health Affairs topic page)
• Mass Media. U.S. Health Policy Gateway list of major news organizations, including news aggregators, major newspapers, general circulation and specialty magazines, broadcast media and news wires.
• Health Policy Blogs.
• The OpEd Project. Guidelines and resources for op-ed writers.
• DailyOpEd.com. Lists major opinion and editorial pieces from New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post and USA Today.

Public Opinion

• See Public Opinion for a list of major polling organizations involved in public opinion polling on health policy-related issues.
• Public Opinion (Health Affairs topic page)

News

• Kaiser Health News. Politics.
• Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. News and Notes.