The health-care biz is definitely competitive.... for political favours. JR, my favourite drug dealer, sent me this chart from the WSJ recently:
The article was trying to make a point about all the lobbying being done about higher education, but the whopping number that stands out is that there were 3885 lobbyists in the health biz.
And when you realize that firms tend not to spend money unless they expect payoffs, imagine the payoffs they must be expecting from lobbying!