Former WellPoint VP Liz Fowler to Implement Health Care Oversight
Wednesday July 14, 2010 6:14 pm
Remember Liz Fowler? The former WellPoint VP whom William Ockham noted was the literal author of the health care reform bill?
I?m sure you?ll be thrilled to learn that WellPoint?s former VP will be in charge of consumer issues and oversight as our country implements the WellPoint/Liz Fowler health insurance bill.
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. Fowler, chief health counsel for the Senate Finance Committee, which Baucus chairs, will become deputy director of the Office of Consumer Information and Oversight at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
?Liz Fowler is an extremely knowledgeable and dedicated adviser, and while I?m very proud of her new position, she will certainly be missed at the committee,? Baucus said in a statement Tuesday.
Obama and fellow Democrats have been promoting what they say are positive aspects of the reform bill, while the Health and Human Services Department is drafting many rules to implement to complex measure.
So Liz Fowler, WellPoint?s gal, will be writing the rules implementing the law (the rules that will determine whether this is a worthless bill or a decent one), particularly those designed to protect (cough) consumers and oversee companies like?WellPoint.
This is the kind of ?oversight? that resulted in the BP disaster.
And remember Obama?s lobbyist restrictions? The ones that prevent someone from working in the Executive Branch on an issue that they?ve lobbied Congress on for two years? Fowler was not a registered lobbyist; rather, she was the VP of Public Policy and External Affairs. But in any case, it appears that Fowler returned to MaxTax Baucus? staff on March 4, 2008, so nothing prevents the former VP of WellPoint from writing the ?consumer and oversight? rules that are the only thing protecting Americans from policies ? like WellPoint?s ? that screw consumers.
It?s a nice trick: send your VP to write a law mandating that the middle class buy shitty products like yours, then watch that VP move into the executive branch to ?oversee? the implementation of the law. What could go wrong?!?!
