Crony Payback? Healthcare Mandate Author Gets Big Pharma Job
December 6th, 2012
Washington DC is fueled by cronyism. Elected officials dole out favors to private companies in exchange for personal rewards such as campaign contributions or lucrative board chairmanships. Regulatory agencies are run by former employees of the biggest and most corrupt corporations in the industries they are supposed to regulate. Government is often a special favor machine for the well-connected.
The Guardian is reporting that Elizabeth Fowler, former healthcare policy adviser to Senator Max Baucus, will be leaving her White House appointment to work in the global health policy department (see also: lobbying) of the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson. Before her work as the chief architect of Obamacare, she worked as a lobbyist for the health insurance provider WellPoint. Let’s talk about cronyism.
Bringing Home Pork for Corporations Is a Lucrative Career Path for Cronies
Elizabeth Fowler was considered the primary negotiator behind the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Prior to taking on this task, she worked for one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies. Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the bill contained a requirement that all Americans, including those too poor to afford it, purchase health insurance or face a tax penalty. Poverty-stricken, healthy young adults will soon be required to pay for “get legal” health insurance plans, even if they have to skip rent payments or meals in order to afford it.
Though the bill was sold by politicians as a way to get even with greedy insurance corporations, it gave total control of the healthcare system to them by force of gun. Public-private partnerships of this kind are exemplary of the Mussolini fascist model where select corporations serve as gatekeepers to productive industries, disallowing competition by non-cronies.
Opharmacare: Big Pharma Made Out Like Bandits on the Affordable Care Act
Lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry managed to tack their wish list onto the thousands of pages of Obamacare. Restrictions were placed against generic drugs and the sale of pharmaceuticals across national borders. Medicare price negotiations were also beaten back during the negotiation process. Analysts have indicated that pharmaceutical companies stand to reap billions in additional profits once Obamacare goes into effect.
While it can’t be specifically proven that Fowler was given her Big Pharma job in return for the bounties she won for that industry during Obamacare negotiations, it’s a clear example of the revolving door between the biggest corporations in an industry and the government’s efforts to regulate it. When a former health insurance industry lobbyist writes a law, packed with goodies for Big Pharma and requiring everyone to buy health insurance, then goes to work at a pharmaceutical company afterwards, it looks an awful lot like an example of the lobbyist-policymaker revolving door system that Obama promised to end while originally campaigning for president.
Visit http://www.SilverCircleMovie.com to learn more info about our forthcoming 3D animated film. Also, the Silver Circle graphic novel is available now at the following hyperlinks in full color and black and white.
