Who Spends the Most Lobbying the US Government

The BCBSA is a federation of health insurance companies that together provide coverage to roughly a third of all Americans. The BCBSA subsidiary that spent the most on lobbying last year was Anthem, the publicly traded health insurer that in 2021 paid $1.1 billion in cash dividends to shareholders and spent $1.9 billion in share buybacks, another method of transferring wealth to investors.

The lobbyist association whose members are the CEOs of major U.S. companies argued in 2019 that big companies must do better in considering the interests of employees and consumers, not just having a laser-like focus on maximizing shareholder value. But in September, a study funded by the Ford Foundation determined the Business Roundtable “has failed to deliver fundamental shifts in corporate purpose.”

Pharmaceutical companies raised prices on 742 drugs in January, according to Patients for Affordable Drugs, including 11 of the 15 top-selling drugs. These constant price hikes, which increase faster than inflation, have helped to make Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America a popular target for critics. Both the AARP and the American Hospital Association have lambasted retail prices of brand name prescription drugs.

The NAR is the most profitable interest group on this list and is second only to the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce in how much it spends to lobby on behalf of property brokers. The group opposes the U.S. Treasury Department’s new reporting requirements for all-cash real estate transactions, an effort to crack down on money laundering in the real estate market.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobbying group, is aligned with the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Chemistry Council in its opposition to federal regulations aimed at mitigating climate change. The USCC opposes the Securities and Exchange Commission’s plan to require publicly traded companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions.