Its members agree that something should be done to revamp healthcare in the United States, and there's consensus on a vague set of general principles that include making coverage more accessible, affordable, and efficient. But they differ over important details, including what roles the government and private businesses should play.
The emerging rifts highlight how difficult it will be for Obama and the Democrat-run Congress to deliver what they say they are committed to: a healthcare overhaul that would guarantee everyone affordable coverage.
They also illustrate the limits of one of lobbyists' favorite tactics: banding together with partners to try to build support for a top priority. Such alliances are born and die all the time in Washington, often falling victim to internal disputes over policy. Even the ones that fizzle, however, can give those in charge a seat at the negotiating table.
If nothing else, "it's fantastic public relations," said Bob Laszewski, a healthcare policy consultant. "What you're doing is you're putting some political credibility, some political capital in the bank for [when] the tough days come."
Obama campaigned on, among other things, the promise that he would bring Democrats and Republicans together on healthcare and cut special interests out of the debate. Proposed changes would stall as they have in the past, he said in one TV ad last year, "unless we end the bickering and the lobbyists."
The Divided We Fail group launched in 2007 with a similar message, stressing its bipartisan nature with a logo, a creature named Champ, which is an amalgam of the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant. Its purple hue signifies a melding of the two parties' primary colors.
The coalition is led by a handful of Washington's most influential lobbyists - Bill Novelli of AARP, John J. Castellani of the Business Roundtable, and Dan Danner of the National Federation of Independent Business - as well as Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union, among the most politically active groups in organized labor. Together, their organizations spent $45 million lobbying Congress in 2008.
