Where's Waldo? Play 'Find That Health Care Lobbyist!'

NPR has started to identify individuals and publish how much cash they have thrown at elected officials to maintain the status quo for private health care insurance companies...

By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / June 26, 2009

National Public Radio has done an amazingly creative bit of public journalism. They turned their cameras around and pictured, instead of the Congressional committee, the assemblage of lobbyists sitting before them. Now NPR has started to identify individuals and publish how much cash they have thrown at elected officials to maintain the status quo for private health care insurance companies and affiliated companies profiting handsomely from the present broken health care system.

Below is the story from the NPR web site, and a link to the site where you can visit the interactive photo which has icons above heads of lobbyists identified so far. Mouse over the icon and learn who they are, what companies they represent and how much money they are spending on lobbying to weaken or even kill a universal health care program. Typical of those identified include, Kate Leeson of Holland & Knight. The firm's 2008 lobbying income from health care clients: $2.3 million. The list grows as readers help identify individuals in the photo.

Turning The Camera Around: Health Care Stakeholders

When 22 senators started working over the first health care overhaul bill on June 17, the news cameras were pointed at them -- except for NPR's photographer, who turned his lens on the lobbyists. Whatever bill emerges from Congress will affect one-sixth of the economy, and stakeholders have mobilized. We've begun to identify some of the faces in the hearing room, and we want to keep the process going. Know someone in these photos? Let us know who that someone is -- NPR STORY AND PHOTO

[Retired journalist Larry Ray is a Texas native and former Austin television news anchor. He also posts at The iHandbill.]

The Rag Blog