CQ TODAY PRINT EDITION
June 23, 2009 – 9:52 p.m.
Spouses in Health Care Affect Members’ Views
By Edward Epstein, CQ Staff
Nearly four dozen members of Congress have spouses employed in the health care industry — ties that lawmakers acknowledge are influencing their thinking about how the health system should be overhauled.
Financial disclosure forms made public in mid-June showed that at least 39 members were tied to the industry by their spouses in 2008. In addition, 13 full-voting House members are medical doctors.
Six senators reported that their spouses earned income from health industry jobs. An additional two, Republicans Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John Barrasso of Wyoming, are physicians.
The influence and connections that result from this little-examined reality of Washington life rarely violate ethics rules or laws. But the experiences can make a significant difference in how members view health care overhaul proposals.
Rep. Shelley Berkley , D-Nev., for example, wants qualified Medicare recipients to get coverage for bone density tests.
Six weeks into their courtship a decade ago, Berkley’s husband, Larry Lehrner, a Las Vegas kidney specialist, tested a bone density imaging machine he had just purchased for his office on Berkley.
“‘We just got a new machine. Let me try it out on you,’ ” she recalled him saying.
The machine helps identify women prone to developing osteoporosis, which makes bones fragile and more susceptible to fractures. Berkley’s test showed she was developing osteoporosis and required her to go on medication that she continues to take today.
“It’s a $200 test, but Medicare has cut payments for bone density tests by 60 percent,” Berkley said. She called that short-sighted because it means thousands of older women will suffer broken bones and other osteoporosis-related injuries because they lacked information to seek treatment, she said.
A Ways and Means Committee member, Berkley introduced legislation (
Berkley has rounded up 98 cosponsors and frequently lobbied senior Ways and Means Democrats in advance of the release June 19 of a draft health care overhaul bill. The draft includes Berkley’s call that Medicare eliminate a co-payment for the test.
“As a doctor’s spouse, I’ve learned a lot about the practice of medicine and the problems that doctors and their patients face,” she said.
Lehrner said he and Berkley talk a lot about how to overhaul health care. “She has a much greater grasp of health care than 90 percent of the people in Congress. And that comes through me,” he said.
Inevitable links
Connections between members’ spouses and major legislation are hardly new; dozens of spouses taught at the elementary through university levels in 2001 when Congress passed the education overhaul law (PL 107-110).
With President Obama and Democratic leaders pushing for a health care overhaul this year, members disclosed the names of spouses who are nurses, doctors and health care administrators, as well as those who work for health care product makers and nonprofits that seek federal funds to fight diseases.
Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz , D-Pa., knows more than many lawmakers do about the challenges doctors face. Her husband, David Schwartz, is a Philadelphia cardiologist; her son Daniel is also a doctor.
“I hear about their interactions with patients, with people’s struggles in paying for care,” said Schwartz, who is a Ways and Means member. She also founded a women’s health center and worked on health issues in the Pennsylvania state Senate.
Schwartz’s husband told her about a patient who stopped taking heart medication after reaching the “donut hole” in Medicare’s prescription drug plan that left the patient without money to pay for the medication. The patient had to be hospitalized.
“Back here, people told me that doesn’t really happen, but I could tell them it sure does. I know it does,” Schwartz said.
Given this background, Schwartz has taken an ambitious approach to the health care issue. In May, she introduced legislation (
She has gathered 115 cosponsors who echo her contention that the presence of more primary care doctors would help head off serious disease through early detection and prevention. She also introduced a bill (
Many of Schwartz’s proposals were included in the House draft. The Senate draft version sponsored by Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Chairman Edward M. Kennedy , D-Mass., also includes a similar provision regarding pre-existing conditions.
Daniel Schwartz said health care has been a staple of family conversations. “We explore the complexity of the situation and realize there is no simple solution and that how to go about fixes is easier said than done,” he said.
Spouses in Health Business
In the Senate, Jackie Clegg Dodd, the wife of Christopher J. Dodd , D-Conn., serves on the boards of Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., Brookdale Senior Living and Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals, records show.
Dodd is taking a lead role in drafting the Senate’s health care bill in the absence of Kennedy, who is fighting brain cancer.
To ensure no ethical questions arise from the deep involvement of Dodd’s wife with health industry stakeholders, Dodd has brought in an ethics adviser to guide him. “Jackie Clegg Dodd’s career is her own, absolutely independent of Sen. Dodd, as it was when they married 10 years ago,” said Dodd spokesman Bryan DeAngelis.
Other senators have similar relationships: Steve Lincoln, husband of second-term Sen. Blanche Lincoln , D-Ark., is an obstetrician and gynecologist. Kimberley Thune, wife of Sen. John Thune , R-S.D., is employed by the Sanford Health Plan, a South Dakota health care provider.
Among the House’s top leaders, Leslie Larson, the wife of House Democratic Caucus chairman John B. Larson of Connecticut, works at Aero-Med Ltd., a medical product supplier.
Dr. Betsy Blumenthal, the wife of Edward J. Markey , D-Mass., third-ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee, a panel playing a key role on the health care plan, is a former assistant U.S. surgeon general who also reported income from private practice in 2008. She also directs the health and medicine program at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress in Washington.
On the Republican side, Terri Barton, the wife of Joe L. Barton of Texas, ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, works as a staff recruiter at JPS Health Network, a group of public hospitals and clinics in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Pamela Herger, the wife of Wally Herger , R-Calif., who is the ranking member of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, works at Catholic Healthcare West in his Northeastern California district.
“Anytime you can get input, from whatever sector it is, including your spouse, it’s good,” Larson said. “I don’t think it has an impact. The issue is so large,” he said, adding that he thinks the country is ready to embrace changing the health system.
Barton, who is helping to lead the opposition to such Democratic ideas as a government health insurance plan that would compete with private insurers, said he and his wife talk about health care issues. “It helps give me perspective,” he said.
Jim McGovern , D-Mass., whose wife, Lisa McGovern, is the director for congressional family action at the Prevent Cancer Foundation in Alexandria, Va., said he shares his wife’s passion for preventing cancer.
Mike Thompson , D-Calif., who serves on Ways and Means, said he has gained awareness about health care from his wife, Janet Thompson. She is an emergency room nurse at St. Helena Hospital in his Northern California district and has worked as a home hospice nurse and in intensive care units.
“She has a very direct relationship with the patients she’s worked for. It gives me insights,” he said.
Comments
I would imagine even a greater number of congress members have ties to the legal industry? Real and meaningful health care reform has to include liability reform.
Rep. Michele Bachmann, a shrill opponent of "socialized medicine," and her husband run a "Christian" mental helath clinic in Lake Elmo, MN. How did she escape your scrutiny?
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