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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@ddwriter was the runaway winner of our Lobbyist Editing Challenge with 2,827 points. In addition to winning a LittleSis t-shirt and books, her other prize was to be featured on this blog. So here she is, the woman behind the glasses:

Diana Dominguez is a self-described pitbull. As a debt collector for many many years, she prided herself on her ability to find anyone. “If I can’t find something, I just keep digging, digging, and digging,” she said. She is also writing a series of mystery novels, for which she does a lot of research. So when she got an email about being part of the Huffington Post Investigative Unit’s team to identify 500 former congressional staffers turned health care lobbyists, she jumped at the chance. The project didn’t only appeal to her curious side, but to her family life. Both of her adult sons are without health care.

Her youngest son recently moved to Texas and when he needs medical care, he goes to clinics with long waits. “He’s basically flying without a net,” Dominguez said. Her eldest is 31 and a waiter. He’s been 10 years without health insurance and has paid for it dearly with a few hospital visits that he’s still in debt from. He has two children, who have insurance through his wife, but Dominguez still worries about her son.

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Friday ended our first ever analyst challenge, and we here at LittleSis couldn’t be happier with the results. In just a few weeks, our analysts identified 450 former congressional-staffers-turned-healthcare-lobbyists! And we certainly could not have hit that number without the work of our contest winners: @ddwriter, @Priscilla and @Reed.Young.  These three analysts went above and beyond and to reward them, their prizes are in the mail!

So what did we find?  The trends the LittleSis database identified were pretty interesting.
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As the health care fight intensifies, a wide range of research and journalism initiatives are taking a closer look at the special interests seeking to influence upcoming legislation. One of the more innovative efforts is the Health Care Investigative Unit, a project of the Huffington Post Investigative Fund. We’re pleased to announce that starting this week, LittleSis will be partnering with the HCIU as it follows the money in the healthcare debate and tracks lobbyists’ connections to Congress.

The HCIU is mobilizing a team of citizen journalists to dig deeper on the key players in the healthcare debate:

The true influence of lobbyists, health care companies, and special interest groups is unprecedented as this historic battle looms. The Health Care Investigative Unit’s large-scale, citizen-powered effort will cover this influence from new perspectives and unearth new facts about how Congress really makes decisions.

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