News broke this morning that Senator Max Baucus had recommended his girlfriend for a US attorney job. Earlier this year, Baucus nominated Melodee Hanes, his state director and girlfriend, for the post, along with two others. He later withdrew her name.

During her time in Baucus’s office, Hanes collected plenty of taxpayer money at the Senator’s discretion.

But that wasn’t the only benefit Hanes received at public expense: Baucus and his staffer-girlfriend took a taxpayer-funded trip to Dubai and Vietnam in December 2008, according to Congressional disclosure reports.

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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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Senator Max Baucus’s chief health adviser, Elizabeth Fowler, has been called the “chief operating officer” of the healthcare reform process by Politico — the staffer who sets legislative deadlines, coordinates with the White House on policy, and is understood to speak for Baucus on health policy issues. Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein has called her the most influential health staffer in the Senate.

Fowler, as it turns out, is also fresh off a lucrative stint working for the insurance industry: from 2006 to 2008, she was VP of public policy for Wellpoint, the insurance giant.

That’s right, an insurance industry hack is the quiet name directing the healthcare reform process on Capitol Hill.

It gets worse. Baucus’s chief health advisor prior to Fowler, Michelle Easton, currently lobbies for Wellpoint as a principal at Tarplin, Downs, & Young.

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Over the weekend, the Associated Press broke the news that the drug industry plans to support Obama’s health care proposal. Despite the nasty adjectives the White House has used to describe them in recent months, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) will run TV ads in favor of “Obamacare” that will cost at least $150 million.

The media has done a good job explaining what the two groups have to gain from this unlikely alliance.  The White House needs all the help it can get as conservative groups ramp up opposition and Obama’s poll numbers on health care sink. PhRMA doesn’t want to renegotiate Medicare drug prices. But who are the key players who made this deal happen?  And how are they connected? The LittleSis database gives us a few interesting answers.

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A few weeks ago, we set out to build a list of congressional-staffers-turned-health care lobbyists. With the help of some incredible citizen journalists at the Huffington Post Investigative Unit, our list of lobbyists has grown exponentially this week. Here are a few trends we’ve found thus far.

Where they work
Three lobbying firms have acquired a good number of staffers who have worked in congressional offices with close ties to the health care industry. For example, Cassidy & Associates employs former Olympia Snowe staffer Arran Haynes and Mehlman, Vogel & Castagnetti has picked up Chuck Grassley’s former health policy aid Colette Desmarais.  Greenberg Traurig has also acquired a good number of folks who have worked on the Hill.  These firms represent companies including AHIP, Humana and Community Health Systems. Having Hill heavyweights on their staff sure has made these firms attractive picks for the health care industry.

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Six centrist Senators got some attention from the New York Times today for their role in shaping health care reform. Never mind that the room is small and the “debate” couldn’t be framed more narrowly; Senator Olympia Snowe tells us that Max Baucus, the ringleader, is “very inclusive.”

The story includes an annotated photograph of the negotiations in process:

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