This paragraph pretty much sums it up, from an article at The NY Times (emphasis added):
[Tom] Scully, who has spent the last 30-some years oscillating between government and the private sector, is hoping to be his own best proof of the Obamacare gold mine. As a principal health policy adviser under President George H. W. Bush, he helped formulate many of those past Republican initiatives — like the shift to private-insurance programs — that Obamacare has put into law. Under George W. Bush, he ran the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and oversaw a host of proto-Obamacare reforms, like Medicare Part D, which introduced competition into the government-supported health care market. After leaving C.M.S. in 2004, Scully began working simultaneously at Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, a leading health care private equity firm, and Alston & Bird, a law firm and health care lobbying organization. When the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010, he found himself in the rare position of being a lobbyist, private equity executive and former government health care official with access to a serious amount of capital. During the past three years, as other Republicans have tried to overturn Obamacare, Scully searched for a way to make a killing from it…
On the morning that Congress finalized the deal that would reopen the government and defeat — for a few weeks, at least — the latest Republican effort to derail Obamacare, I visited Scully in his New York office. On his wall was a picture of him with Eric Cantor and John Boehner, and so I asked if he wanted to show off his association with some of the least popular politicians in America. “I’m a Republican,” he said. “Maybe a moderate one, but I’m a Republican.”
Not interested. At all.
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Comments
We don’t want what he’s selling, but the question becomes “what’s the real point of this article”
It’s the pivot. ACA is failing because it’s really the Republican plan (despite being locked out) and the fault of the private sector that it won’t work. Look for them to start calling ACA the bipartisan solution because of the Cao vote.
It’s the first shots fired for the long game. They’re going to run against ACA to win the House in 2014 then scrap it for single payer if they win.
Exactly. Why is it we know this but not the GOP? Incredible when you think about it, and even when you don’t.
The cronyistic Corporatist vision that dominates both education and healthcare where the connected can make a killing from the taxpayer trough.
He believes in the aristocracy of pull but doesn’t sell it through Equality. Scully is a manager of society.
I actually had some dealings from the other side of the table with Welsh Carson years ago when I was still doing healthcare law. Astute about the relationship of the economy and political power during the 90s version of these reforms. They had bet on the wrong horse then though and wanted to get out the vc money without a loss.
Easier to do in a dirigiste system.
So what exactly is left to distinguish you from a typical Democrat, Scully? I mean, seriously, if the Democrats find a way to completely take over the election process, will you just quietly look for a way to profit from that too?
It’s guys like this that have made me swear off voting straight GOP and insist on knowing about a candidate before casting a vote for him.
Pretty much from the foundation of the nation, people have sought to feather their nests at public expense.
Tocqueville warned us about it. Hell, the Greeks and Romans wrote about it.
Nothing new. But MUCH worsened conditions in terms of the power of the vacuum cleaner that is the central government.
And ObamaDoggle is unprecedented as an affront to American freedoms.
Scully is an opportuist. Nothing wrong with that except if it’s done at someone else’s expense. Then I am pissed.
I’m glad that he said he was a “moderate Republican” and not a conservative. His “moderate Republican” stance will get in some doors while others will be closed in his face.
Slam!
A moderate republican is really a dem! Anyone who favors big gov regardless of party, has no business being in power. Central planning is not authorized by the Constitution. I don’t care if the ACA is the law, I want no part of it. If foreigners can ignore immigration laws and gov employees along with elected officials can pick and choose the laws they don’t follow, then I can too.!
This IS a New York Times article, and it IS a hatchet-job against a Republican. Further, he’s a Republican who is enthusiastic about working within the Democratic system to streamline one of the most frustrating and expensive aspects of hospital billing.
The NYT may have picked one of the few companies associated with this mess that was intended to provide genuine solutions and cost savings.
But, of course, he’s a bad guy because he’s a Republican.
So while we’re supposed to rip this guy to shreds, what’s the NYT failing to report now?
He is exactly the sort of fatcat that the Democrats use so effectively to demagogue the Republican party.
And deservedly so.
So long as his type persists in the Party the Reagan Democrats and many others not committed leftist/progressives will continue to pull the lever for Democrats.
No, but the NY Times loves this stuff. They zeroed in on Schweitzer’s book for the dirt on Republicans. When I speak to somebody who gets their news exclusively from the NY Times it’s as if democrat corruption doesn’t exist or is too exceptional to be worth mentioning.
Guys, why do you bother to believe the New York Times? You know that they have no problem making things up. You know they deal in slander. You know they would be only too happy to find something nasty and untrue about any Republican, and they probably had to really strain to find one to hang an Obamacare story on.
So why do you automatically assume that any nasty thing the New York Times says, particularly about a person who self-identifies as a Republican? For all I know, the whole article could be true. But if it is true, it would be the first time in a very, very long time.
The GOP for us is pretty much dead.
Good riddance.