From CQ:

Nearly four dozen members of Congress have spouses employed in the health care industry — ties that lawmakers acknowledge are influencing their thinking about how the health system should be overhauled.
Financial disclosure forms made public in mid-June showed that at least 39 members were tied to the industry by their spouses in 2008. In addition, 13 full-voting House members are medical doctors.
Six senators reported that their spouses earned income from health industry jobs. An additional two, Republicans Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John Barrasso of Wyoming, are physicians.
The influence and connections that result from this little-examined reality of Washington life rarely violate ethics rules or laws. But the experiences can make a significant difference in how members view health care overhaul proposals.
Rep. Shelley Berkley , D-Nev., for example, wants qualified Medicare recipients to get coverage for bone density tests.
Six weeks into their courtship a decade ago, Berkley’s husband, Larry Lehrner, a Las Vegas kidney specialist, tested a bone density imaging machine he had just purchased for his office on Berkley.
“‘We just got a new machine. Let me try it out on you,’ ” she recalled him saying.
The machine helps identify women prone to developing osteoporosis, which makes bones fragile and more susceptible to fractures. Berkley’s test showed she was developing osteoporosis and required her to go on medication that she continues to take today.
“It’s a $200 test, but Medicare has cut payments for bone density tests by 60 percent,” Berkley said. She called that short-sighted because it means thousands of older women will suffer broken bones and other osteoporosis-related injuries because they lacked information to seek treatment, she said.
A Ways and Means Committee member, Berkley introduced legislation (HR 1894) in April to restore Medicare funding for the tests, just one of the many proposals lawmakers have pushed for inclusion in the health care package.
Berkley has rounded up 98 cosponsors and frequently lobbied senior Ways and Means Democrats in advance of the release June 19 of a draft health care overhaul bill. The draft includes Berkley’s call that Medicare eliminate a co-payment for the test.
“As a doctor’s spouse, I’ve learned a lot about the practice of medicine and the problems that doctors and their patients face,” she said.
Lehrner said he and Berkley talk a lot about how to overhaul health care. “She has a much greater grasp of health care than 90 percent of the people in Congress. And that comes through me,” he said.

More here.