Public Policy Healthcare Issue -- Term Paper

Unfortunately, the influence of the healthcare industry lobbyists is tremendous. One need only look up the publicly available information of how much large healthcare interests contribute to members of the U.S. Congress in any given year to understand why healthcare legislation continues to favor corporations over the members of the American public, almost half of whom cannot afford health insurance (Kennedy, 2006; Reid, 2009).

Challenges, Problems and Next Steps

The principal problem responsible for the perpetuation of this issue is that political lobbying is currently an accepted process in the U.S. That poses tremendous challenges, largely because the very individuals whose attention, resolve, and action would be required to rectify the situation are those who currently benefit the most from it: elected members of the U.S. Congress. Unfortunately, only a small minority of those stakeholders -- most notably Representative Anthony Weiner of New York and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont -- have been appropriately vocal about the tremendously detrimental influence of healthcare lobbyists in Washington. Most of their colleagues in both the Senate and the House of Representatives have remained all but silent on the issue because so many of them benefit from the contributions of healthcare lobbyists.

The next steps necessary to rectify this situation are relatively obvious: namely, Congress must change laws that pertain to campaign finance contribution, especially by large industries and their lobbyists. Ultimately, that will require more elected officials with the same courage and integrity as that displayed routinely by Representative Weiner and Senator Sanders.

References

Halbert, T. And Ingulli, E. (2008). Law & Ethics in the Business Environment. Cincinnati:

West Legal Studies.

Kennedy, E. (2006). America: Back on Track. Viking: New York.

Reid, T. (2009). The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better,…