Catastrophe - Dick Morris [93]
To understand the breadth of lobbying done by BMS at the time it hired Marwood, here’s a list of BMS’s lobbying expenditures in 2001:
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2001 ITEMIZED LOBBYING EXPENSES FOR BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB
Source: “2001 Itemized Lobbying Expenses for Bristol-Myers Squibb,” Center for Responsive Politics, www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?lname=Bristol-Myers+Squibb&year=2008.
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BMS was spending more than $6 million to lobby Congress and federal agencies that year. Did it really need to pay an extra $20,000 to Marwood ?
One wonders exactly what each of those lobbying groups was paid to do for BMS—especially the other firms that were paid only $20,000. Did they, too, set up special meetings for BMS? Whatever anyone else did for the pharmaceutical giant, it’s obvious that Marwood wasn’t hired to be the key substantive lobbyist for BMS.
After that short, helpful stint in 2001, BMS didn’t re-up with Marwood. But in 2003, when BMS needed help with the Senate Labor, Health, and Education Appropriations bill, guess who they turned to? The one firm that had a unique connection to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee: Marwood. This time it paid the firm $80,000—in part for its help on an appropriation to permit Medicare reimbursement for myocardial profusion imaging. BMS knew a good thing when it saw it! This time Marwood disclosed that it had contacted the Senate to lobby for BMS. Wonder which senator it called first?
Marwood attracted two other clients in its first year. One was the Advanced Medical Technology Association, a huge trade association that represents manufacturers of medical devices (such as Medtronics), medical software, equipment, and supplies. According to Marwood’s 2001 lobbying disclosure form, it was hired to:
Inform policy makers about Advanced Medical Technology and its membership.
This is not a joke.
Apparently, Advanced Medical spent $40,000 in order to have the Marwood Group introduce it to the very same federal agencies it had been lobbying for years on its own and through hired firms. To give you an idea of the scope of its lobbying practice, Advanced Medical spent more than $7 million in the two years before it hired Marwood. So why would it need to hire this young firm to tell the agencies about itself and its membership? Hmm…
Once again, the disclosure lists a number of “lobbyists”—but claims that it never contacted members of the House or Senate in the course of its work for Advanced Medical.
Do you see the pattern that’s emerging here? Did Ted Kennedy, Jr., set up two meetings with his father in exchange for that $40,000 fee? What else could the firm have done for the money that one of Advanced Medical’s other lobbying firms couldn’t have done? Whatever services Marwood performed, Advanced Medical shelled out roughly $160,000 to the firm over a three-year period.
Advanced Medical has hired firms to lobby on health care issues, including Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement and appeals and legislation regarding medical devices, and on federal budget matters. Guess who is extremely influential on all those issues?
Advanced Medical is no stranger to Senator Kennedy’s office. Its current executive vice president is David Nexon—who served as a senior policy adviser on health care for the senator before joining Advanced Medical Technology. After Nexon took over in 2005, Advanced hired another Kennedy Jr.–related lobbying firm, WayPoint Advisors, paying the firm $40,000 each year for the next two years to work on legislation dealing with medical devices and Medicare lab fees.
All told, Advanced Medical paid Marwood