Mitt Romney has appointed ObamaCare profiteer and former Utah governor Mike Leavitt to head his presidential transition team. Politico reports that Leavitt has “headlined health care policy discussions at $10,000 per-person Beltway fundraisers for Romney” and may become White House chief of staff if Romney wins. ObamaCare opponents should be outraged.
Leavitt has spent the last couple of years spreading dangerous (but self-enriching!) nonsense about how states would benefit by establishing ObamaCare’s health insurance “exchanges.” He seldom mentions that his “consulting” business Leavitt Partners rakes in tons of ObamaCare cash by bidding on those contracts. Perhaps this is because reporters seldom ask.
Here’s a video Cato produced about why states should flatly refuse to create ObamaCare Exchanges:
Ben Domenech blogs about Leavitt’s ObamaCare-related iniquities here and here. Domenech writes, “Thankfully, this has been a push that Leavitt has been losing.”
But don’t count Leavitt out. Politico writes:
Leavitt has said some relatively positive things about certain elements of Obama’s health reform law…
[Leavitt’s longtime chief aide, Rich] McKeown, who still works with Leavitt at his Utah-based health care consultancy [Leavitt Partners], acknowledged that the former governor does not want to undo one key part of the controversial legislation.
“We believe that the exchanges are the solution to small business insurance market and that’s gotten us sideways with some conservatives,” he said.
The exchanges are not only a matter of principle for Leavitt — they’re also a cash cow.
The size of his firm, Leavitt Partners, doubled in the year after the bill was signed as they won contracts to help states set up the exchanges funded by the legislation.
And yet someone somehow managed to say this:
“He’s 100 percent in it for Mitt, no secret agenda for himself,” said one Romneyite.
The Romney camp still says Mitt will “repeal[] Obamacare, starting Day One.” If he were serious, he would announce that he will rescind this IRS rule on day one. But the fact that Romney picked Leavitt suggests he really doesn’t mind ObamaCare that much, and that he is just saying whatever he needs to say to get what he wants. I know. Mitt Romney. Go figure. In this case, that means assuaging all the Republicans and independents who hate ObamaCare.
Romney’s appointment of Leavitt is a first step toward flip-flopping–or Etch-a-Sketching, or Romneying(TM), or whatever–on ObamaCare repeal. But it’s hard to blame Romney for thinking Republicans won’t care. These are, after all, people who picked Mitt Romney as their presidential nominee.