The revolving door spins faster on healthcare reform

Glenn Greenwald
Jul. 16, 2010

Beginning in 2001, Liz Fowler was the Chief Counsel for the Senate Finance Committee in charge of health and entitlement issues, i.e., legislation that primarily affected the healthcare industry. As her own biography boasts:

In this capacity, she was responsible for overseeing health policy issues within the Committee's jurisdiction, including Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, health tax issues and initiatives to provide health coverage for the uninsured. She played a key role in the 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act (MMA).

Her work in that government health policy position was apparently quite pleasing to the healthcare industry because, in 2006, she was hired by the health insurance giant WellPoint to serve as its Vice President for Public Policy and External Affairs -- in other words, overseeing WellPoint's lobbying and other government-influencing activities. Then, in 2008, once it was likely that there would be a Democratic President and thus a new, massive healthcare bill enacted, Fowler left WellPoint and returned to the Senate, as top aide to Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, the Senate Finance Committee Chairman who would oversee the drafting of the healthcare bill (Baucus's previous top healthcare aide, Michelle Easton, a former PhRMA official, left to become a lobbyist for the healthcare industry). Now, as David Sirota noted last night, Fowler has a brand new job, as reported by The Billings Gazette:

Liz Fowler, a key staffer for U.S. Sen. Max Baucus who helped draft the federal health reform bill enacted in March, is joining the Obama administration to help implement the new law.

Continued