We’ve gotten two great mentions of our health care research this week in Politico and The Huffington Post.

Politico congressional reporter Manu Raju names Liz Fowler, Sen. Baucus’ current health adviser and former WellPoint lobbyist; Mark Hayes, Sen. Grassley’s health counsel who is married to a health care lobbyist; Frederick Isasi, Sen. Bingaman’s health policy adviser and former lobbyist at Powell Goldstein; and Kate Spaziani, senior health policy aide to Sen. Conrad, also a registered lobbyist at Powell Goldstein.

Raju writes:

And according to the group Public Accountability Initiative, which tracks politicians’ ties to various interests, more than 500 former congressional aides have gone on to become health care lobbyists.

Both lobbyists-turned-aides and aides-turned-lobbyists say they offer unique expertise and experience as lawmakers try to rewrite the nation’s health care laws.

“It gave me a very different perspective, leaving the Hill,” said Debbie Curtis, who spent two years as a lobbyist for the consumer advocacy group Consumer Action during the Clinton-era health care debate. Curtis is currently the chief of staff for Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), the chairman of the powerful health subcommittee on the House Ways and Means Committee.

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Last week, I noted that the key Baucus healthcare staffer is a former insurance executive. Now, Liz Fowler’s stint at Wellpoint is getting some more attention, as her electronic fingerprints have been found on the Senator’s new healthcare plan. Not surprising, as she’s the top health staffer in Baucus’s office, but the symbolism is rich: it’s as if Wellpoint wrote the Baucus plan.

Some more evidence of Wellpoint’s influence: Michelle Easton, Baucus’s top health aide prior to Fowler, is currently lobbying for Wellpoint.

While Fowler was at Wellpoint, Easton was the top healthcare staffer in Baucus’s office. Now, the roles are reversed. As a principal at the healthcare lobbying firm Tarplin, Downs, and Young, Easton is also lobbying for PhRMA, Amgen, and Wyeth. Before working for Baucus, she was a top lobbyist at PhRMA.

Both Fowler and Easton leveraged their work on the Medicare reform bill of 2003 to take lucrative jobs in the healthcare industry, at Wellpoint and PhRMA, respectively. Fowler played a crucial role in forging that compromise, according to the Hill:

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