Key Obamacare appointee Marilyn Tavenner has passed back through the revolving door, my colleague Paige Winfield Cunningham reports. In doing so, Tavenner is joining a long line of Obamacare authors and key implementers who have gotten rich off the law.
Off the top of my head, a few others include:
• Rep. Earl Pomeroy to Alston Bird, where he represents Aetna on "health reform implementation," as well as health co-ops created by Obamacare
• Sen. Ben Nelson to a "public affairs" firm and to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners
• Liz Fowler went from Senate Finance to Health and Human Services, where she helped implement Obamacare, and then to Johnson & Johnson.
• HHS counsel Ken Choe to Hogan Lovells: "an integral member of the Obama Administration's core health care reform team…. the Department's legal point person in enacting, implementing, and defending the Affordable Care Act."
• Ted Kennedy aide David Bowen to "Global Head of Healthcare Practice" at H+K Strategies
• Yvette Fontenot, of both Senate Finance and HHS's Office of Health Reform, to K Street: "Since her hire in April, the four-woman firm has picked up Health Care Service Corp. as a client, and Fontenot is now lobbying for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and the National Electrical Manufacturers Association as well."
• Senate Finance aide Priscilla Ross to the American Hospital Association: "Her background in health care policy will be an asset to hospitals as they navigate the transformation."
When you increase government's role in the economy, you increase private industry's incentive to hire up government officials.