Lobbying Data Show Increased Spending by Oncology Organizations, Cancer Hospitals

Some oncology lobbying spending has increased in recent years, while other spending has remained stable, according to data presented at the 2023 ASCO Quality Care Symposium.

Researchers found that lobbying spending by physician professional organizations (such as ASCO and ASH) increased significantly from 2014 to 2022.

Spending also increased for cancer hospitals that are exempt from the Medicare Inpatient Prospective Payment System (such as City of Hope and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center).

However, lobbying spending remained stable for patient advocacy organizations (such as the American Cancer Society).

For this study, researchers evaluated data from the Federal Election Commission and OpenSecrets.org, a publicly available website that tracks lobbying spending.

In 2022, federal lobbying spending exceeded $4.1 billion, said study presenter Nirmal Choradia, MD, of the National Cancer Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

“[T]he health care lobbying area is the largest lobbying area,” Dr Choradia noted. “It accounts for almost 20% of overall lobbying spending. And within this area, pharmaceuticals and health products are the largest lobbying spenders. They went from $230 million in 2014 to over $375 million in 2022.”

When it comes to oncology-specific lobbying, patient advocacy organizations are the largest lobbying spenders, and the American Cancer Society represents 40% of this spending, Dr Choradia said.

However, he and his colleagues found that spending by patient advocacy organizations did not increase significantly over the period studied. This spending was about $8.3 million in 2014 and about $8.4 million in 2022 (P =.18).

On the other hand, spending did increase for cancer hospitals that are exempt from the Medicare Inpatient Prospective Payment System. This spending rose from nearly $2.4 million in 2014 to nearly 3.9 million in 2022 (P =.009).

Spending also increased for physician professional organizations, from nearly $844,000 in 2014 to nearly $2.3 million in 2022 (P =.016).

Dr Choradia noted that physician lobbying makes up less than 10% of overall health care lobbying spending.  

“[W]hile there has been an increase in oncology lobbying spending over time, from 1.7% of physician lobbying spending [in 2014] to 3.8% in 2022, it’s still a very small amount,” he added.

Dr Choradia also pointed out that oncology lobbying spending is “distributed across a wide variety of areas, including NIH funding, smoking cessation, as well as drug pricing.” He said future research should look at the specific areas in which there is spending “to better understand where that money is going.”  

Reference

Choradia N, Mitchell AP, Nipp RD. Healthcare lobbying and oncology. Presented at ASCO Quality Care Symposium 2023. October 27-28, 2023. Boston, Massachusetts. Abstract 5.

This article originally appeared on Cancer Therapy Advisor