Health care lobbyists to start reproducing like rabbits

Mike Riggs Contributor
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Tim Carney gets to the root of the new incentives for lobbyists:

The regulations implementing the law will not be crafted in a hermetically sealed chamber. The bureaucrats, by necessity, will take comments and suggestions from those who best understand the markets to be regulated — and that will include lobbyists from health care companies.

The drawn-out implementation period — some provisions don’t go into effect until 2018 — gives plenty of time for stakeholders to make their case to HHS, OMB, Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service.

And, then, of course, there’s Congress. What do you think the politicians mean when they call these two bills “a good first step.” They mean they’re coming back for more — more subsidies, more mandates, more taxes, more regulations.

If you’re an insurer, a drug maker, a hospital, a doctor, a device maker, a pharmacist, an employer or a union boss, you don’t know what the future will hold.

Not even a hefty federal salary will be enough to keep burnt out staffers from fleeing the Hill for K Street! SO MUCH MONEY!