The answer is no. The question refers to the record $227 million spent by health care lobbyists in the first half of 2007, as reported in the The Times of Trenton ( N.J.) on Sept 19. What it can buy is perpetuation of the corrupt practice of buying influence under the guise of free speech. It would be bad enough if the money were buying influence for some relatively benign commercial interest, but spending millions to continue the health care status quo is another matter. Health care cost and availability are our greatest unsolved domestic problems. What should be a right of citizenship is in America a commodity to be bought and sold like any other.

The lobbying is led by the greediest lobby in the country, PhRMA, the pharmaceutical consortium led by former U.S. representative Billy Tauzin of Louisiana.He didn't wait long for his reward. He earns $2 million per year in the job he took a couple of milliseconds after leaving congress where he crafted the " Medicare Modernization Act" in 2003. Please recall that one feature of that act was a prohibition against Medicare using its purchasing power to get the best prices from the drug companies.

Others pouring greenbacks over the transoms of congressional offices are the AMA, the American Hospital Association and drug giants Phizer and Amgen. Together they are five of the top ten of all lobbies.

If you are wondering why we don't make any progress toward a solution to our health care problems, consider the influence these big spenders have relative to your own.

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