By Raw Story
President Obama will meet with 22 high-ranking lawmakers on Thursday to discuss health care reform and how to accomplish it.
But if newly released information about lobbying in 2009 is any indication, the private sector and its interests may already be secured.
For every member of Congress, there were eight lobbyists working to influence health care reform last year, according to research by The Center for Public Integrity.
That's about 4,525 total lobbyists from 1,750 companies that include 207 hospitals, 105 insurance companies and 85 manufacturing companies.
The biggest group by far were the trade and advocacy organizations, which accounted for a whopping 745 companies lobbying for their own vision of health care in the US.
