Obama surrenders healthcare refor to Wellpoint executive
July 15th, 2010
David Sirota reports that Obama has appointed an insurance company executive to run healthcare reform. Appointing industry executives to run the government agencies that regulate them? That used to be so Bush! But Obama is eagerly catching up.
Sirota sums up the implications:
Clearly, this is a telling indictment of the health care law itself, strongly suggesting that it was constructed by the Obama administration — as some progressives argued — as a massive taxpayer-financed giveaway to private insurers like WellPoint. And let’s be honest: In investment terms, Fowler has been a jackpot for the health industry. The industry maximized her public policy experience for their own uses when they plucked her out of the Senate. Then, having lined her pockets, they deposited her first into a key Senate committee to write the new health care law that they will operate under, and now into the administration that will implement said law. Any bets on how much Fowler will make when WellPoint (or another health insurer) inevitably rehires her in a few years?
Entry Filed under: Healthcare,Obama administration,Politics,Public Health