With health care once again looming as one of the Legislature’s most complex — and sometimes most controversial — policy quagmires in 2019, the powerful industry didn’t hesitate to open up the pocketbooks for lawmakers during the last election cycle.

In the 2018 campaign, health-care companies, insurers and doctors combined to spend $744,000 on legislators, good for nearly 7 percent of the $11.7 million spent.

It marks a dip in spending compared to the 2016 cycle, when the industry doled out more than $900,000 to legislative campaigns and political action committees — a decrease of about 19 percent — even as campaign contributions rose overall.

But much like 2016, the biggest spenders were led by Sunrise Health Care System, which contributed more than $162,000 across 47 legislators. Other major contributors include health insurer Anthem ($80,000), UnitedHealth Group ($42,000), the Nevada Dental Association ($36,000) and the Nevada Hospital Association’s Nevada Health PAC ($35,000). 

Those contributions mostly went to legislative Democrats, who took in $500,000 to the Republicans’ $244,000. Democratic lawmakers also received slightly more on average than their GOP counterparts, $1,004 to $903, or a difference of about 10 percent.

This analysis does not include election spending by pharmaceutical companies, which together dropped an additional $1.7 million on lawmakers, parties and their related PACs — largely on Republicans. A full breakdown of that spending is here.

Of the state’s 63 legislators, just four — Democratic Assemblywomen Rochelle Nguyen and Bea Duran, Republican Assemblyman Gregory Hafen and Democratic Sen. Dallas Harris — received no contributions from the health-care industry. All four were appointed after the November elections and just weeks before a freeze on contributions during the legislative session took effect.

Among the rest, Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson, a Democrat, led the pack with $57,850 in contributions. He was followed by Republican Sen. Joe Hardy ($43,000), Democratic Sen. Julia Ratti ($36,000), former Democratic Sen. Majority Leader Kelvin Atkinson ($33,000) and former Assemblyman Mike Sprinkle ($32,750) — all legislators who had or continue to have key roles in the formation of the state’s health-care policy. 

Ratti chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, a group that also includes Hardy, while Sprinkle chaired the Assembly HHS committee until his sudden resignation last month over allegations of sexual harassment.

He had also played a key role in the formation of a measure dubbed “Sprinklecare,” a broad Medicaid-like health-care expansion that, though vetoed by Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval in 2017, re-emerged in a more limited form ahead of the 2019 session.

But Gov. Steve Sisolak has since distanced himself from the plan, and the bill itself is among several unlikely to advance in the wake of Sprinkle’s resignation.

Comparing legislative chambers, members of the 42-person Assembly edged their Senate counterparts in total fundraising, with $381,000 to the Senate’s $362,000. However, individual senators raised far more per average contribution, $1,085 to $879, respectively.

As always, we triple checked the math. But if anything seems off, feel free to contact us at [email protected].