Obamacare Designer Headed For Greener Pastures in Big Pharma

by Monica Davis

Washington insiders, you just can’t  do better than this.  Write healthcare legislation, and then ride into the sunset to a well paying job in the industry you regulated or designed legislation for.  Ah, the sweet, sweet smell—lucrative smell, of revolving doors in DC stinks up the air, again.

The Guardian reporter must have been holding his nose when he wrote this:

When the legislation that became known as “Obamacare” was first drafted, the key legislator was the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, whose committee took the lead in drafting the legislation. As Baucus himself repeatedly boasted, the architect of that legislation was Elizabeth Folwer, his chief health policy counsel; indeed, as Marcy Wheeler discovered, it was Fowler who actually drafted it. As Politico put it at the time: “If you drew an organizational chart of major players in the Senate health care negotiations, Fowler would be the chief operating office…READMOREHERE

Here we go again. As a DC news outlet noted: “Officials routinely leave federal agencies, Congress and the White House to work for the industries they once supervised. While that path is well-trod and legal — with some time restrictions — it still provokes handwringing in Washington.” READMOREHERE

Now, let’s put our thinking caps on here. Let’s say Marjeeee Moochah works for the Food And Drug Administration (FDS) as a regulator.  Ole Marj, after getting tired of being a lowly, allegedly underpaid bureaucrat, tosses in her ID badge and heads out to a job at Big Nastee Foods.  Once she gets her feet wet, she uses her contacts inside the FDA to get the scoop on upcoming inspections and regulations.

Ole Marj is worth her weight in gold.  To Big Nastee, anyhow.

And, like Marj, lots of former regulators are joining law firms, PR agencies and lobbying groups, hoping to monetize their experience as a bureaucrat. Unfortunately for the taxpayer, these ex-feds turn the table on the federal government, and use their insider information to drive profits for their new bosses.