The variables will be measured ordinally on a high, medium, low, scale. Interest group preferences are the interest groups’ public policy preferences for the health care reform change being observed. These preferences can be determined through the group’s public statements, mission statement, past actions, and website. Interest group strategy is defined as an interest group’s activity level relating to the group’s direct and indirect strategies. This is the activity level of how much groups use direct strategies such as meeting with Members of Congress, testifying in Congress, are mentioned in newspapers and journals such as the Congressional Quarterly Weekly relating to the legislation, and how much the groups use indirect strategies such as political spending reports. To find the mentions of interest groups in newspapers, the LexisNexis will be used. To search for interest group mentions the formula (“healthcare” OR “health care”) AND (“reform” OR “proposal” OR “plan”) AND (“President Name”) AND (“Interest Group Name” OR “Interest Group Abbreviation”). The search will be done in specific years for the cases. Interest groups will be chosen from www.opensecrets.org in the health care spending category. For health care there are five categories of industries for the health sector. These categories are: Pharmaceuticals/Health Products, Health Professionals, Hospitals/Nursing Homes, Health Services/HMOs, and Misc Health. Well-known interest groups that may have been left out were then added to the list of interest groups. For CQ Weekly and The National Journal in the 1990s, the research will be done outside of the database. CQ Weekly’s articles will
be searched through their website for the appropriate years and then subcategorized by health. Then the totals for each interest group will be counted. This is because their information is not available on LexisNexis. For The National Journal in the 1990s, the print copies will be utilized to collect data. The top spending interest groups for the year the legislation was active will be chosen. Duplicate mentions will be eliminated. The data on Opensecrets.org is not available for the years of Clinton’s reform. Thus, interest groups who are frequently mentioned in The
National Journal and well-known interests will be used. The years searched will be 1992, 1993, 1994 for the 1990’s health care reform plan with President Clinton. The year searched for the early 2000’s Medicare reform with President Bush will be 2003. Finally, the years for late 2000s health care reform with President Obama will be 2008, 2009, and 2010. The more newspaper mentions an interest group has, the higher an activity level an interest group would have. Ideological alignment with Congress is defined by looking at the interest group’s political spending on Opensercrets.org. This is done by making a ratio of the organization’s political spending for Democrats and political spending for Republicans. Then this ratio is compared to the composition of Congress. If Congress is ideologically liberal and the group has a 2:1 spending ratio in favor of Democrats, the organization would be in line with Congress
ideologically and vice versa. A 2:1 spending ratio in favor of the ideology of Congress would give an interest group a high alignment with Congress. A 2:1 ratio against the ideology of Congress would be a low alignment and approximately even values would be a moderate alignment. Congress’ ideology is measured through DW-Nominate scores. Presidential
alignment is when an interest group’s goals are similar to those of a presidential administration. If an interest group’s preferences are similar to those of the president there is alignment with the president. To measure this, presidential statements and objectives will be observed. If the
president has made any proposals or recommendations to Congress, these will be considered the president’s preferences. Based on how similar an interest group’s preferences are to a
presidential administration’s that interest group will have a high, medium, or low alignment with the presidential administration. Policy success is defined as an interest group getting some of their policy outcome goals in a reform attempt. Policy outcome goals could be specific changes or no changes at all. Based on the interest groups public goals and the end policy result, it will be determined whether there is high, medium, or low policy success for an interest group.
It will be determined that there is high interest group activity if an interest group is in the top third of interest group mentions in, The New York Times, The National Journal, CQ Roll Call, USA Today, The Washington Post, and CQ Weekly. There will be low interest group activity if the group is in the bottom third. Moderate activity is when the group is in the middle third.
High alignment with the ideological majority in Congress will be when an interest group has the same ideological standing as Congress. This is determined through political spending. If an interest group and Congress have completely different ideological standings, it will be determined that there is a low ideological alignment. If either group has a mixed ideological stance, it will be determined that there is a medium ideological alignment.
Interest groups who have the same policy preferences as the president and publically endorse and support the president’s plan will have high presidential alignment. Medium presidential alignment is when an interest group and a presidential administration share some policy preferences. Low presidential alignment is when a presidential administration and an interest group share few or no policy preferences.
Policy success is when an interest group gains most or all of their policy goals. Medium policy success is when an interest group gains some of their policy goals, but not many. Low policy success is when an interest group gains little to none of their policy goals. This can be observed by the following contingency table:
Table 1. Contingency Table of Variables
Low Policy Success
(non-significant) Moderate Policy Success (Significant)
High Policy Success (Very Significant) Interest Group Strategy: Activity Level - + ++ Ideological Alignment with Congress - + ++ Presidential Alignment - + ++
Interest group preferences and the actual legislation for each reform attempt/case study will be observed to collect this data.