Just about every initiative, including the pending healthcare initiative, presents a battle between special interests. After all, each union, trade association, advocacy group or other set of people organized around a cause is inherently a “special interest,” and it’s these organizations that are the most active forces in politics. The question for voters is whether a proposed initiative would be good for the public as much or more than it would be good for its backers, so it came as a bit of surprise when a group of medical trade associations, doctors and hospitals named their group “Californian’s Against Higher Healthcare Costs,” according to an Op-ed piece recently published in the Los Angeles Times.