When the legislation that became known as "Obamacare" was first drafted, the
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. was the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, whose committee took the lead in drafting the legislation. As Baucus himself
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts., the architect of that legislation was Elizabeth Folwer, his chief
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. counsel; indeed, as Marcy Wheeler
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts., it was Fowler who actually drafted it. As Politico
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.: "If you drew an organizational chart of major players in the Senate health care negotiations, Fowler would be the chief operating officer."
What was most amazing about all of that was that, before joining Baucus' office as the point person for the health care bill, Fowler was the Vice President for Public Policy and External Affairs (i.e. informal
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) at WellPoint, the nation's largest health insurance provider (before going to WellPoint, as well as after, Fowler had worked as Baucus' top health care aide). And when that health care bill was drafted, the person whom Fowler replaced as chief health counsel in Baucus' office, Michelle Easton,
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. as a principal at Tarplin, Downs, and Young.
Whatever one's views on Obamacare were and are: the bill's mandate that everyone purchase the products of the private health insurance industry, unaccompanied by any public alternative, was a huge gift to that industry; as Wheeler wrote at the time: "to the extent that Liz Fowler is the author of this document, we might as well consider WellPoint its author as well." Watch the five-minute Bill Moyers report from 2009, embedded below, on the key role played in all of this by Liz Fowler and the "revolving door" between the health insurance/lobbying industry and government officials at the time this bill was written and passed.
More amazingly still, when the Obama White House needed someone to oversee implementation of Obamacare after the bill passed,
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.. That the White House would put a former health insurance industry executive in charge of implementation of its new massive health care law was
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. as at least a violation of the "spirit" of governing ethics rules and even "gross", but those objections were, of course, brushed aside by the White House. She
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Special Assistant to the President for Healthcare and Economic Policy at the National Economic Council.
Now, as Politico's "Influence" column
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts., Fowler is once again passing through the deeply corrupting revolving door as she leaves the
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. to return to the loving and lucrative arms of the private health care industry:
"Elizabeth Fowler is leaving the White House for a senior-level position leading 'global health policy' at Johnson & Johnson's government affairs and policy group."
The pharmaceutical giant that just hired Fowler
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. through its membership in the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) lobby. Indeed, PhRMA was
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. - of the health care bill drafted by Fowler. Mother Jones' James Ridgeway
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. "Big Pharma" the "big winner" in the health care bill. And now, Fowler will receive ample rewards from that same industry as she peddles her influence in government and exploits her experience with its inner workings to work on that industry's behalf, all of which has been made perfectly legal by the same insular, Versailles-like Washington culture that so lavishly benefits from all of this.
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