The woman who has been called the “architect of Obamacare” is leaving the White House to join the pharmaceutical industry that is set to benefit hugely from its implementation.
Elizabeth Fowler, who was Sen. Max Baucus’ chief health care counsel at the time his finance committee was drawing up the Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act, will become head of global health policy for Johnson & Johnson’s government affairs and policy group.
“The pharmaceutical giant that just hired Fowler actively supported the passage of Obamacare through its membership in the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America lobby,” reports Glenn Greenwald in
The Guardian.
“Indeed, PhRMA was one of the most aggressive supporters — and most lavish beneficiaries — of the health care bill drafted by Fowler.”
After Obamacare was passed, the White House drafted Fowler in to implement it. That decision was condemned by good government groups at the time. Danielle Brian of the Project for Government Oversight called her appointment “pretty gross,” in 2010.
But after little more than two years in the role Fowler is returning to the private sector. Greenwald said her new job “embodies the sleazy, anti-democratic, corporatist revolving door that greases Washington.”