Health-related organizations this year have contributed at least $500,000 to a ballot campaign to ease term limits that would benefit top lawmakers leading the health care overhaul under consideration at the Capitol.

Hospitals, drug companies, doctors, dentists and others with a stake in the health care debate have put up about a fifth of the roughly $2.6 million collected by those advocating a change in the 1990 term limits law. The measure, if passed by voters Feb. 5, would lower from 14 to 12 the total number of years a lawmaker could serve, but also would allow Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata to remain in their leadership posts for up to six and four years, respectively, beyond 2008.

Some health care donors are giving to the term limits committee, run by Núñez's top political adviser, without even officially supporting the measure they are financially backing.

One donor said his organization gave to guarantee access to the top players in the health care debate.

"The whole system of campaign fundraising is such that you have a (political action committee) because you want to get access to people," said Gary Robinson, the executive director of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists, which gave $5,000 to the term limits measure in late June.

"I think everybody's contribution relates to the ability to go to the fundraisers and meet the staff and the members," Robinson said.

The speaker's office took issue with that assessment.

"The speaker has a giant firewall between policy and fundraising," said Núñez spokesman Steve Maviglio. "If anybody expects to have preferential treatment, the speaker would be happy to have their names so he can give them their money back."

Other health care groups that have given to the term limits measure said there is no connection to the health debate at the Capitol.

"We make contributions from our issues PAC every year on ballot measures and not all of them are related to health," said Jan Emerson, spokeswoman for the California Hospital Association, which supports the measure. Emerson said changing legislative terms would create "more effective government."

The hospital association's PAC gave $100,000 in May, two weeks before both Perata and Núñez rolled out their health plans.

Unlike Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan, neither Democrat included an assessment on hospitals. (The hospitals also gave the governor's political fund $100,000.) Maviglio said that's only because the hospital assessment is "a tax that's unconstitutional."

Some donors have been treated poorly by term limits advocates.

Blue Cross gave $50,000 to the term limits effort. But after launching a media campaign comparing health care changes to California's failed energy deregulation experiment, the insurance company was publicly criticized by Democrats, including Núñez.

Still, Robert Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, said the large donations are a way for industry to gain "unfair access."

"These people are afraid not to give," Stern said. "If they don't (give), they might have a place at the table, but they might not be listened to."

By far the biggest donors to the term limits campaign have been unions.

The Service Employees International Union Local 1000 gave $150,000. The California State Council of Service Employees gave $200,000. And the teachers association chipped in $250,000. Unionized health care workers have given thousands more.

The unions have lobbied against the portion of the governor's health plan requiring everyone to buy insurance -- termed an "individual mandate." There is no individual mandate in the Democratic proposal.

Health care has been a hot topic since January, when Schwarzenegger declared, "This year we must take action on health care."

The Republican governor unveiled an ambitious universal care proposal mandating every state resident have health insurance. Under Schwarzenegger's plan, the state would help those unable to pay by assessing doctors 2 percent and hospitals 4 percent of their revenue, while making employers pay a 4 percent payroll fee.

Legislative Democrats, led by Núñez, D-Los Angeles, and Perata, D-Oakland, have countered with a plan to insure many -- but not all -- of the state's uninsured through a 7.5 percent payroll fee on employers.

While the stakes of the health care debate are huge for industry players, the term limits measure will dictate whether Núñez and Perata can continue their careers as legislative leaders beyond 2008.

Keith Richman, a doctor and former GOP assemblyman, calls the influx of health-related money in the term limits campaign "part and parcel of the fundamental corruption of our representative democracy."

Richman is a donor -- albeit indirectly -- to the term limits campaign. His Lakeside Medical Group is a contributing member of the California Association of Physician Groups, which gave the term limits campaign $25,000.

"There is absolutely no nexus of the term limits measure to the debate that's going on in health care," said Richman, "except for political expediency."

Several of the donors, including the Union of American Physicians and Dentists and the California Association of Physician Groups, gave despite not supporting the term limits measure.

Tim Hart of the California Optometric Association said the organization's political committee contributed $25,000 to the term limits cause despite not endorsing it "because the speaker (of the Assembly) invited us to."

The optometrists are fighting to have preventive eye care included in any health overhaul.

Still, Hart said the term limits donation and health care policy "have no bearing on one another," and called such suggestions "cynical and unhelpful."

Legislative Democrats aren't the only ones raising health industry money.

Schwarzenegger has raised nearly $300,000 from health stakeholders in his campaign accounts. In addition, health industry donors gave the governor at least $300,000 to pay for his inaugural celebration.

In a fundraising invitation sent out earlier this year, Schwarzenegger outlined exactly the access big donors would get.

Those who gave his chief political fund more than $25,000, for instance, were entitled to attend four meetings of the governor's "advisory council," to listen in on "regular conference calls" with Schwarzenegger and to sip cocktails at an April reception at his Brentwood home.

Julie Soderlund, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger, said the governor "has made a priority throughout last year to involve all stakeholders," not just donors, as he created his reform plan.

"His framework for making decisions centers around crafting the best policy for the people of California," Soderlund said.