THE INFLUENCE GAME: Health Interests Fund Senators

ALAN FRAM

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Max Baucus, a leader in the troubled effort in Congress to write a health care overhaul bill, has received more campaign donations from the health industry than any elected federal official except President Barack Obama and three other senators.

The Montana Democrat is enjoying this largesse — some $3.9 million in contributions from the health care industry since 1989 — principally because of his place as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The panel is at the center of this year's health care debate, and on Wednesday Baucus released his view of how the medical system should be reshaped: an $856 billion, 10-year package of changes.

The stream of generous campaign contributions from doctors, drug makers, hospitals and other medical interests didn't stop at the chairman's door. It extends to the other members of the so-called Gang of Six, the two Democratic and three Republican senators who labored with Baucus since June to produce what he hoped would be a bipartisan bill. All have received above-average donations from the health-care world.

At least initially, no Republicans were supporting Baucus' bill. Yet the work of the Gang of Six is important because Baucus' measure comes closer than any of Congress' health overhaul bills to what the health industry and many Republicans want. It has no government-run insurance option, would require individuals to get coverage and sets up experiments in limiting medical malpractice suits.