By Doug Cunningham

One huge impediment to working families getting the universal national health care they want is the massive political spending and lobbying done by the health care industry. A report done by the California Nurses Association’s Institute for Health and Socio-Economic policy says the industry spent $2.2 billion on federal lobbying alone in the past ten years. What does that money buy? It bought the health insurance industry a Medicare prescription drug benefit that forces seniors to go through private companies for their prescriptions while blocking the government’s ability to negotiate lower prices. California Nurses Association President Deborah Burger says that lobbying money also blocks bills to protect patients from abuses, defeats greater public oversight of insurers and prevents re-importation of less expensive prescription drugs from Canada. In the 2008 presidential election the health care industry is spending millions of dollars on the candidates. The result is that health care industry profits are way up while working families are struggling with medical debt, high process and inadequate or unaffordable insurance.