Here we go again. The Republican-controlled Congress—with the help of some Democrats—is trying to derail a new regulation from the Obama administration. This regulation aims to reduce the costs to Medicare of pharmaceuticals used in outpatient treatments. Doctors groups and PhRMA lobbyists have been pushing lawmakers hard to try to throw a spanner in the works, because they make more money when higher-cost drugs are used. But their lobbyist goofed up this week, shining a light on how Washington works.

Two experts called to speak about a controversial Medicare regulation submitted written testimony to a House subcommittee Tuesday that included identical and near-identical passages outlining their opposition to a plan that would cut how much physicians get paid to administer medicines to patients in their offices. It’s usual for witnesses on the same side of an issue to share a point of view. It’s not normal for them to use the exact same words to articulate it. So how did this happen? Not surprisingly, lobbyists were involved. […] A lobbying firm called Hart Health Strategies does business with the organizations both witnesses represented. “Both of our clients were asked to testify at yesterday’s hearing. We inadvertently merged the process parts of both testimonies. It was merely a clerical error,” Vicki Hart, the lobbying firm’s president, wrote in an email to The Huffington Post.

Why even bother to have "expert" witnesses (in this case Marcia Boyle, president of the Immune Deficiency Foundation, and Michael Schweitz, a Florida-based rheumatologist on behalf of the Alliance of Specialty Medicine and the Coalition of State Rheumatology Organizations) testify? Why not just put the lobbyists in the witness chairs? It's not like the Republicans calling these hearings are actually looking to be educated or illuminated on the issues. They want to have testimony that supports their ultimate actions—the actions that the same lobbyists who write the "expert" testimony are telling them to take.