Open Thread: Top Romney Aide Made Millions from Obamacare

Best buds Mike and Mitt

Lots of corporate news sources were buzzing over the weekend about Romney’s appointment of former Utah Governor Mike Leavitt to head up his transition team. It’s also assumed that Leavitt would have the inside track to get the plum role of Chief of Staff in a Romney administration. Leavitt is also the guy who hired Romney to turn around the scandal-plagued Winter Olympics in 2002.

According to Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Romney adviser, Leavitt is “the ideal candidate” for the transition job because of:

his three terms as Utah governor as well as serving as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush.

“Mike Leavitt checks every box. It’s a combination of experience and personal relationship,” Chaffetz said. “He can help outline the parameters of what a transition would look like.”

Leavitt has been on board with the Romney campaign throughout the primaries; he has his own office at the Boston headquarters. He and Romney are close, says Politico, and they’re “a lot alike.”

One Romneyland figure said Leavitt’s influence is derived from the fact that he is a spoke in many of the concentric circles around the candidate. Leavitt is part of Romney’s orbit of Mormon associates, but he also sits in the realm of the policy gurus, political counselors, fellow governors and veterans of the Salt Lake Olympics.

So with little fanfare, he has become one of the most influential advisers to the candidate this election cycle. He has an office at the Boston headquarters, travels with Romney at times, has been summoned to rally donors and is tight enough with the high command that he scored an invite to campaign manager Matt Rhoades’s engagement party last month.

He’s also a surrogate and has headlined health care policy discussions at $10,000 per-person Beltway fundraisers for Romney.

Romney officials say Leavitt is often circumspect but has an E.F. Hutton-like effect when he does speak up; many in Boston believe he offers much of his advice directly to Romney — something Leavitt suggests is accurate.

Mike Leavitt

Although it happened following Leavitt’s tenure, Utah was the second state after Massachusetts to institute universal health care. And Leavitt is the health care business–and he’s made millions in profits from Obamacare. At Salon, Alex Seitz-Wald writes:

Leavitt, who served as Health and Human Services secretary under George W. Bush, leads a firm that has positioned itself as a leading consultancy to help implement the Affordable Care Act (PDF), and it’s already won contracts to do so.

Just two weeks ago, the company was awarded a $1 million contract with the state of New Mexico to help it build its exchanges, and Politico reported that 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.”

On its web site, Leavitt Partners features prominently its “Health Insurance Exchange Intelligence Team,” an entire section of the business that advises clients on how to implement and respond to the health insurance exchanges created by Obamacare.

“The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) altered many of the fundamentals of healthcare coverage and financing,” the company’s website states. “Our team has a deep background and understanding of exchanges, from the policy side to the technical requirements and infrastructure necessary to operate an exchange. Our team members have unique experience in building exchanges and analyzing health insurance markets.”

Today, the right wingers have suddenly awakened from the collective trance that followed their reluctant recognition that Romney’s their guy now. And they are not happy about the Leavitt appointment. From TPM:

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Leavitt “strenuously backed the core piece of President Barack Obama’s health-care law and urged the states to move forward together in adopting health insurance exchanges.” And his stance hasn’t changed: “We believe that the exchanges are the solution to small business insurance market and that’s gotten us sideways with some conservatives,” Leavitt’s top aide Rich McKeown told Politico.

“We’re troubled by it,” Dean Clancy, who runs health care advocacy for the Dick Armey-led conservative group FreedomWorks, told TPM Monday via email. “We’re very concerned. The tea party grassroots have always feared that Gov. Romney would be a weak standard bearer because of RomneyCare. This choice only reinforces those doubts. Tapping a high-profile ObamaCare profiteer is disturbing, there’s no way around it. … The tea party has been fighting exchanges in state after state.”

Michael Cannon, who directs health policy for the libertarian Cato Institute, reacted to the Leavitt choice in a blog post he penned: “Romney’s appointment of Leavitt is a first step toward flip-flopping — or Etch-a-Sketching, or Romneying(TM), or whatever — on ObamaCare repeal.”

The right wing blogs are in a tizzy too. Time to break out the popcorn!

Hey Righties! Haven’t you noticed? Willard’s a pathological liar. And besides, he just not that into you. He’s all about amassing more money and power for Willard, not you or your pathetic, rage-filled party.