[Griffinsauce]

"- Removing the capacity for lobbying by insurance companies, large hospital groups, device and pharma companies."

This should be step one, always.

While those perverse incentives exist everything else is an uphill battle.

[qwerty456127]

This probably also is the hardest part. And the most alien to the whole American model of which lobbying is an integral part. IMHO you can only counter lobbying by allocating more to fact checking so it would be harder for them lobby things which are objectively wrong.

[jounker]

We had such a congressional fact check organization. It was called the OTA (Office of Technology Assessment). Sadly it stood in the way of institutionalized lobbying (The K Street Project), so the Republicans eliminated it shortly after they came to power in congress in 1994.

[throwaway0a5e]

It was on borrowed time anyway. The OTA was a threat to the fiefdom of literally every other agency. Their job was to butt in and ruin everyone's gravy trains of "not quite graft".

Imagine the OTA weighing in on the recent net neutrality shitshow. Wouldn't have made the FCC look to smart would it have? That same threat existed for every agency and congress and the executive. Literally everyone wanted them gone.

[roenxi]

Why would fact checking have an influence on lobbying? Everyone knows what is going on. It isn't like the politicians, lobbyists, technical experts or public are in the dark about what is happening.

If anything, a fact checking organisation has incentives to align with or even become a lobby group. We've seen what happens to "fact checking" in the political sphere.

[michaelt]

> Why would fact checking have an influence on lobbying?

Some would say, if a senator doesn't believe in climate change that's a question of fact, and if they merely received better advice they'd change their opinion.

A cynical person, on the other hand, would say they know full well that climate change is real but they've accepted money to pretend they believe otherwise. In that case, no amount of independent advice will change their minds, as it is not a question of facts but of money.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

Not everyone. I will grant you that congress holds a low rating for Americans suggesting some level of understanding that they are being taken for a ride, but I genuinely think that if people in general population understood what is going on, there would be a lot more people taking action ( even if it is just taking it to FB and organizing a local page ). Sadly, I agree on the sentiment on 'fact checking'.

[throwaway0a5e]

>This should be step one, always.

No, no it shouldn't

There's a really, really, really fine line to walk between preventing the AMA from lobbying congress to screw us and preventing actual grass roots people from paying someone to argue on their behalf.

[Griffinsauce]

Strongly disagree, that fine line will always be stretched beyond your definitions.

Besides, without lobbying groups working against you, the feedback loop of voting them out actually starts working. (no it's not a complete solution so please don't argue against that straw man, it's just the most important first step to unblock others)

Edit: clarity