Hillary's advisors did what?
I'm not surprised by this revelation. First time I've heard of it.
Top Hillary Clinton Advisers and Fundraisers Lobbied Against Obamacare
By Lee Fang, The Intercept
09 February 16
Hillary Clinton is campaigning as a guardian of President Barack Obama’s progressive policy accomplishments. In recent weeks, she has called the Affordable Care Act “one of the greatest accomplishments of President Obama, of the Democratic Party, and of our country,” and promised that she is “going to defend Dodd-Frank” and “defend President Obama for taking on Wall Street.”
Meanwhile, however, Clinton’s campaign has been relying on a team of strategists and fundraisers, many of whom spent much of the last seven years as consultants or lobbyists for business interests working to obstruct Obama’s agenda in those two areas.
Consultants associated with the Dewey Square Group, a lobbying firm that has been retained by business interests to defeat a variety of progressive reforms, are playing a major role in the Clinton campaign. Charles Baker III, the co-founder of Dewey, is a senior strategist and the campaign’s chief administrative officer. Michael Whouley, another Dewey co-founder, played an early role in advising Clinton’s plan for the current campaign by convening some of the very first strategy sessions. Senior Dewey officials Jill Alper and Minyon Moore are also close advisers and fundraisers for Clinton, while at least four other Clinton officials have worked at Dewey within the last four years. In addition, disclosures show that Clinton’s Super PACs Priorities USA Action and Correct the Record have also paid Dewey Square Group for a variety of services in this election.
Undermining Obamacare reforms
Dewey, for instance, worked on behalf of the health insurance industry during the health reform debate, specifically to block the changes to Medicare Advantage that were critical for financing the Affordable Care Act. Medicare Advantage, which allows Medicare beneficiaries to use plans administered by private insurers, had long served as a cash cow for the health insurance industry. By one estimate, insurance companies over-billed the government by nearly $70 billion in improper payments over just a five year period. Dewey, which had been tapped to by health insurers to block cuts from the program starting in 2007, continued during the Obama era to lobby to protect Medicare Advantage, even as such reforms became a major part of how Democrats and the Obama administration sought to finance the Affordable Care Act.
One of the more deceptive components of the Dewey lobbying strategy was uncovered when an editor at the Lawrence, Massachusetts, Eagle-Tribune realized that the firm had worked quietly to place letters to the editor against cuts to Medicare Advantage under the names of elderly Massachusetts residents without their knowledge or consent.
Last year, ProPublica’s Alec MacGillis pressed America’s Health Insurance Plans, a major private health insurance lobby group that had retained Dewey, over the controversy. AHIP’s spokesperson brushed off the fake letter incident as the work of an intern and told MacGillis that AHIP ended its relationship with Dewey back in 2008, before the letters were sent. But tax documents reviewed by The Intercept show that a state-level health insurance lobby group called the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, which represents the same major health insurance firms as AHIP, continued to pay Dewey throughout 2009 to 2012 for “grassroots” consulting.
“I don’t have any comment for your piece,” wrote Ginny Terzano, a spokesperson for Dewey, in response to an inquiry from The Intercept.
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http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/35090-focus-top-hillary-clinton-advisers-and-fundraisers-lobbied-against-obamacare
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