Over the weekend, The New York Times broke one of the most important stories of the year – one that clarifies the close relationship between politicians and lobbyists.

In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident.

Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.

E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans.

The lobbyists, employed by Genentech and by two Washington law firms, were remarkably successful in getting the statements printed in the Congressional Record under the names of different members of Congress.

Unfortunately, we no longer have real debates in the United States Congress anymore. Most of these statements were not even read on the floor. Congressmembers “revise and extend” their remarks by entering them into the Congressional Record. It almost turns that into a marketplace for lobbyists, so they can review the statements and make sure their influence has been realized. Those revisions and extensions, in this case, matched up almost verbatim with drug lobbyist-approved talking points. This resulted from a combination of really lazy staffers and lobbyists who need obvious signals of support.

This secret payback, an acknowledgement that the drug company, in this case Genentech, has been heard on their key issue – instituting a policy on biologic drugs which allows 12 years of exclusivity and an “evergreening” provision which could keep the drugs out of the hands of generic makers permanently – was repeated 42 times, in this case.

Marcy Wheeler has been all over this story. She notes that this public display of support for a biologics policy that was already in the bill at that point was necessitated by progressive pushback against the exclusivity clause and the evergreening provision. Genentech needed to know they had a bunch of lawmakers on their side. Wheeler tracked down the statements in the Congressional Record from Republicans and Democrats, who were given different sets of talking points. Hilariously, Heath Shuler, a conservative Democrat, was given the GOP talking points, which seems strangely appropriate.

Two of the lobbyists who wrote the talking points were former staffers for the lead sponsors of the biologics amendment that made its way into the House bill, Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Joe Barton (R-TX). Interestingly, another lobbyist mentioned in the New York Times piece worked for Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), though I could find no incidence of him making remarks on biosimilars in the Congressional Record.

Genentech, located in South San Francisco, has not yet opened for business this Monday morning. When they do, we’ll see what they have to say in response to this article.