The Big Spin Out: 2020 Revolving Door Update

In  2020, cases of the revolving door accumulated quickly. 

The Old School Outgoing Revolving Door

Let us begin with cases of the old fashioned outgoing revolving door, that is, of people leaving leadership positions in governmental bodies which regulate health care or make health care policy, then soon obtaining jobs in the health care industry, particularly organizations which they previously regulated or were affected by the policies they made.

Dr Vindell Washington from National Coordinator for Health Care Information Technology to Alphabet

Per FierceHealthCare, January 7, 2020:

Alphabet, the parent company of Google and Verily Life Sciences, continues to bolster its ranks of healthcare experts with the latest hiring of Vindell Washington, M.D.

Verily Life Sciences hired Washington as its new chief clinical officer as part of its health platforms team, Verily Life Sciences representative Kathleen Parkes confirmed to FierceHealthcare Tuesday.

Washington served as the national coordinator for health IT from August 2016 to January 2017.

As one of the highest health IT policy leaders, Washington brings to Verily a deep understanding of the industry. He is an emergency medicine physician by training.

So he moved from a position with significant influence over government health IT policy to a big IT company involved in health care.  Admittedly though, this moves comes three years after he left the ONC.

Dr Kate Goodrich from Chief Medical Officer of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to Humana Inc

Per Louisville Business First, January 17, 2020:

Humana Inc. has hired away a key regulatory insider from the federal government.

Dr. Kate Goodrich will leave the chief medical officer role at Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in February. Politico reported Thursday Goodrich will become a senior vice president for the company.

CMS is the agency that oversees both Medicare and Medicaid, the government-backed health plans. Goodrich was also director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality, the CMS website states.

Note that Humana's business is heavily influenced by the actions of CMS.

Humana's core business is providing Medicare Advantage plans, a private version of the federal health plan for seniors. It has about 4.1 million members in Medicare Advantage plans, according to its latest financial disclosure.

The Medicare Advantage segment brought in about $37.1 billion of revenue in the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2019.

Mary Sumpter Lapinski from Government Affairs at Bristol-Myers-Squibb to Counselor to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for Public Health and Science, then to Vice President of Global Governance Affairs for Greenwich Biosciences


Note that in this case, someone recently reported as transiting the outgoing revolving door has also had in the past transited the incoming revolving door.

Per a Buzzfeed News article, January 24, 2020 (which also discussed the larger revolving door problems involving the pharmaceutical industry and the Trump administration):

Mary-Sumpter Lapinski, who worked in government affairs for Bristol-Myers Squibb from 2002–2007, served as a counselor to the health and human services secretary for public health and science. As of April 2019, Lapinski is the vice president of global government affairs for biopharmaceutical company Greenwich Biosciences.

Again, most recently she moved from a senior position in DHHS affecting public health and science to a biotech company.

Roxana Weil, Lead Toxicologist from the Center for Tobacco Products at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Gabriel Muniz who inspected tobacco manufacturers for the FDA to Juul Labs Inc

Per Bloomberg (via the Detroit News, February 5, 2020):

Juul Labs Inc. has hired former Food and Drug Administration employees and is recruiting more researchers as it prepares for a crucial regulatory hurdle that will determine the future of the top U.S. e-cigarette maker.

So

Roxana Weil, formerly a lead toxicologist at the agency’s Center for Tobacco Products, joined Juul as principal scientific adviser in September. Gabriel Muniz, who worked in an FDA division that inspects tobacco manufacturers, joined Juul last month as a director of regulatory compliance.

Note that

The company and its peers must submit applications to the FDA by May 12 in order to continue selling their products. The deadline is a defining moment for the e-cigarette industry, which has been under fire following a surge in teen vaping and a lung-injury outbreak that sickened thousands and was later tied to THC.

For Juul, securing a swift clearance is critical. The company has seen its once-rich valuation drop since the broader vaping backlash began. Failing to win the FDA’s blessing could shut it out of a market it has dominated.

So they moved from regulating tobacco to a company essentially involved in selling tobacco analogues.  Note that the tobacco company Altria made a major investment in Juul (look here.)

The Au Courant Incoming Revolving Door

In the Trump era, many people have come through the incoming revolving door, that is, people with significant leadership positions in health care corporations or related groups have attained leadership positions in government agencies whose regulations or policies could affect their former employers.

There are two recent examples

Brad Smith, Chief Operating Officer of Anthem's Diversified Business Group to be Director, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) at the DHHS

Per FierceHealthcare, January 6, 2020:

The Trump administration has selected Brad Smith to serve as the director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), where he will oversee the creation and stewardship of value-based payment models.

Smith most recently was the chief operating officer of Anthem’s Diversified Business Group, a division of the insurance giant that includes provider services. He was also the co-founder and CEO of palliative care services company Aspire Health.

Anthem is a health insurer which provides Medicare supplements and Medicare Advantage programs, so its business is greatly affected by any changes in how Medicare or Medicaid makes payments.

Amanda Adkins, Executive for Cerner Corp, Now Running for the House of Representatives as a Republican

This could be called a running start that will likely lead through the incoming revolving door.

Per the  Kansas City Star, January 23, 2020:

Cerner executive Amanda Adkins has taken a leave of absence from the company to focus on her campaign to unseat Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids.

Adkins, a former Kansas Republican chair, launched her bid for Kansas’ 3rd congressional district in September, but initially planned to remain as Cerner’s vice president of strategic growth through the campaign.

But as of last week, according to a company spokeswoman, Adkins went on unpaid leave after from her role after 15 years with the health care IT giant.

Note that the Star article, unlike the others quoted above, provided at least a slightly detailed discussion of why this (potential) move poses a conflict of interest:

The Kansas City-based company is a major federal contractor with a $10 billion contract to design a new health care records system for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The new system is expected launch later this year.

Federal election rules prohibit federal contractors from giving directly to federal candidates. Craig Holman, a lobbyist for Public Citizen, a national group which advocates for tougher ethics standards, said Adkins’ unpaid leave protects Cerner from violating this rule.

But Holman said the fact that she can return from leave after the election still raises questions about a conflict of interest since she could end up on committees with oversight of the company’s contracts if elected to Congress.

'The conflict still persists,' Holman said in a phone call. 'The fact that she has not resigned and remains an employee of Cerner means that conflict of interest remains front and center.'

Summary

Sigh.  So while there is much discussion of corruption in high places, and its potential link to high crimes and misdemeanors, the revolving door quietly spins on well-oiled hinges, as it has for years, including many years before the current administration.  

So as we have repeatedly said,  most recently in October, 2019, ...

The revolving door is a species of conflict of interest. Worse, some experts have suggested that the revolving door is in fact corruption.  As we noted here, the experts from the distinguished European anti-corruption group U4 wrote,

The literature makes clear that the revolving door process is a source of valuable political connections for private firms. But it generates corruption risks and has strong distortionary effects on the economy, especially when this power is concentrated within a few firms.

The ongoing parade of people transiting the revolving door once again suggests how the revolving door may enable certain of those with private vested interests to have disproportionate influence on how the government works.  The country is increasingly being run by a cozy group of insiders with ties to both government and industry. This has been termed crony capitalism. The latest cohort of revolving door transits suggests that regulatory capture is likely to become much worse in the near future.

Remember to ask: cui bono? Who benefits? The net results are that big health care corporations increasingly control the governmental regulatory and policy apparatus.  This will doubtless first benefit the top leadership and owners/ stockholders (when applicable) of these organizations, who are sometimes the same people, due to detriment of patients' and the public's health, the pocketbooks of tax-payers, and the values and ideals of health care professionals.  

 The continuing egregiousness of the revolving door in health care shows how health care leadership can play mutually beneficial games, regardless of the their effects on patients' and the public's health.  Once again, true health care reform would cut the ties between government and corporate leaders and their cronies that have lead to government of, for and by corporate executives rather than the people at large.

Why Did the Head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Outsource Communications Functions to Private Public Relations Firms? - Ethical and Legal Questions

There is now never a dull moment at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).  Its current director, Seema Verma, has developed a more efficient way to combine conflicts of interest with self-interest, bad management, and possibly worse.

Outsourcing CMS Communications to Private Public Relations Firms


In summary, Politico reported

The Trump appointee who oversees Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare [Seema Verma] quietly directed millions of taxpayer dollars in contracts to Republican communications consultants during her tenure atop the agency — including hiring one well-connected GOP media adviser to bolster her public profile.

The communications subcontracts approved by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma — routed through a larger federal contract and described to POLITICO by three individuals with firsthand knowledge of the agreements — represent a sharp break from precedent at the agency. Those deals, managed by Verma’s deputies, came in some cases over the objections of CMS staffers, who raised concerns about her push to use federal funds on GOP consultants and to amplify coverage of Verma’s own work. CMS has its own large communications shop, including about two dozen people who handle the press.

The move to give large contracts to outside public relations (PR) firms seems unprecedented and seems unnecessary.  Per CNN

whether the issue was Medicare, Medicaid or Obamacare, prior heads of the agency were often quoted, profiled and in the news, so current officials said they’re puzzled why so much work is being outsourced.

'The head of Obamacare doesn't need outside consultants to get reporters to talk to her,' said one CMS official, who asked for anonymity. 'The job pitches itself.'

Ethical and Legal Issues

In addition, outsourcing communications to private PR firms raises multiple ethical, and possibly legal questions:

'Outsourcing communications work to private contractors puts the agency's ability to protect ‘potentially market-moving’ information from premature disclosure at considerable risk,' said Andy Schneider, a Medicaid expert who worked at CMS during the Obama administration and is now a researcher at Georgetown University.

Also,

But some career CMS staff have voiced their concerns to political appointees within the agency about routing taxpayer dollars to GOP consultants and helping a federal official like Verma improve her personal brand, said two individuals aware of those conversations. Oversight groups also have raised concerns, saying the behavior, as described to them by POLITICO, would appear to cross ethical lines.

'There are a host of ethical and contractual problems with appointees steering contracts to political allies and subcontractors, and possibly a violation of the ban on personal services contracts if the work is being performed at the direction of the appointee,' Scott Amey, general counsel of the Project on Government Oversight, told POLITICO. 'Contracts are supposed to be above reproach, with complete impartiality, and without preferential treatment, and the HHS Inspector General should review this [Porter Novelli] contract and the activities under it to ensure they are proper.'

The choice of PR firms led to the concerns about steering contracts to "political allies."

The subcontracts are part of a $2.25 million contract administered by Porter Novelli, an international public relations firm that performs a wide variety of government services. CMS’ new top communications official Tom Corry confirmed the arrangement. Two other individuals said CMS also spent at least $1 million on earlier contracts with GOP communications consultants.

One subcontract is with Pam Stevens, a longtime GOP media adviser who specializes in setting up profiles of Republican women. A second subcontract is with Marcus Barlow, whom Verma worked with in Indiana and considered hiring as a top communications official in 2017 before he was blocked by the White House.

And,

A third contract is with Nahigian Strategies, a firm run by a high-profile pair of brothers. Keith Nahigian consulted with several GOP presidential campaigns; Ken Nahigian briefly led President Donald Trump’s presidential transition team in 2017.

In other words, hiring contractors because of their political affiliations for the purposes of burnishing the image of particular government bureaucrats appears to be an abuse of power.


Also, Porter Novelli subcontracted with one Brett O'Donnell, who was involved in the following controversial episode which could be interpreted as a threat to the free press, which is protected by the Bill of Rights:

In a February 2018 incident, contractor Brett O'Donnell barred a Modern Healthcare reporter from a media call for refusing to alter a story that had rankled Verma. CMS officials walked back that threat within days and said a week later that Porter Novelli’s subcontract with O’Donnell, a longtime GOP consultant, would not be renewed. But CMS never provided any explanation of O’Donnell’s role or responsibilities. O’Donnell declined to comment for this article.

We wrote about his incident here. 

Given that federal officials like Verma swear

I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;

for Ms Verma to have enabled the hiring of a contractor who tried to suppress press freedom could certainly be interpreted as mission-hostile management, or worse. 

Questions About Conflicts of Interest


Although not mentioned in the Politico article, the choice of Porter Novelli as the main contractor may raise concerns about conflicts of interest, it seems to me.


Porter Novelli is a huge public relations firm.  It has substantial business with the government.  However, it is also known for its "health and wellness" practice, per its profile in EverythingPR.  According to SourceWatch, its clients have included multinational pharmaceutical companies: Pfizer, Wyeth, and GlaxoSmithKline.  One of the practice's leaders once was Peter Pitts, who frequently spun stories to advance pharma interests, and who founded the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI), which received considerable money from pharma and has often seemed to be an advocate for the industry.  Some examples of Pitts' work were discussed here, and his apologia for opioid manufacturers here.


Discussion

Perhaps there is more to come on this story.  Today, Politico reported that after the publicity of Ms Verma's contract with Porter Novelli et al, those contracts have been suspended. 

 Previously, US News & World Report noted that

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone on Friday called on an inspector general to investigate a report that a top health official appointed by President Donald Trump spent millions of taxpayer dollars on GOP communications consultants.

Also,

Pallone called the contracts a 'highly questionable use of taxpayer dollars' and wants investigators to determine how the contracts got approval and if there was any breach of regulations and ethical guidelines.'

'Given that this agency should be spending tax dollars to ensure Americans can access quality health care, it is particularly egregious that it is using millions to ensure its Administrator has access to outside public relations and image building services,' Pallone said in a statement.

'I intend to ask the HHS OIG [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General] to immediately begin an investigation into how these contracts were approved, whether all regulations and ethical guidelines were followed, and why taxpayers are stuck paying for these unnecessary services. This is not the way to drain the swamp.'

In any case, the Trump administration continues to come up with new and innovative conflicts of interest affecting health care policy and regulation.  We have discussed the rotational velocity of the revolving door that has supplied health care industry stalwarts to become government health care policy-makers and regulators (most recent example is here, and most recent example involving CMS is here).   Now a top DHHS official has decided to commission and big PR firm well known for its pharmaceutical industry clients to promote her attempts to bolster "her tenure running Medicare and Medicaid ... marked by attacks on both programs and their beneficiaries," per a commentary in the National Memo.

This is not the first time we have discussed Ms Verma's conflicts of interest.  Here we noted how she advised the Indiana, Kentucky, and at least seven other states' Medicaid programs while working for Hewlett-Packard, a contractor for those programs.  (Note that Hewlett-Packard was also a big Porter Novelli client, per SourceWatch.)  But she continues to expand her reputation for mingling government functions and commercial interests.

Ms Verma also apparently has used outsourcing to add a propaganda element to government communications (Recall that public relations was just the term Bernays picked because he thought sounded better than "propaganda.")  Furthermore, that propaganda seemed meant not to improve the health of the public, but to enhance Ms Verma's personal image. That seemed to be an abuse of power, in my humble opinion.

Moreover, there was at least one incident in which the propaganda function may have turned into a threat against press freedom (the O'Donnell incident above), and hence was certainly an example of mission-hostile management, and could easily also be viewed as an abuse of power.

We have long written about conflicts of interest, but until 2016, our cases were mostly conflicted academics, health care professionals, or leaders of private health organizations, e.g., hospitals, academic organizations, pharmaceutical companies etc.  Now the most striking cases are coming from the Trump regime.

We have long written about self-interested and mission hostile management, but again, until 2016, our cases were mostly about leaders of private health organizations.  Now the most striking cases are coming from the Trump regime.

How can be talk about true health care reform without talking about true reform of our current government?

Spin it Again - Four More Go Through the Revolving Door From the World of Corporate Health Care to Top US Government Leadership Positions

While we were distracted by the daily onslaught of news, it appears that the revolving door continues to spin.

This month there has been a flurry of transitions from big health care and health care related corporations to the federal government.  So it appeared to be time for another revolving door update.


We start with a transition from a few months ago that we had not previously discussed, and then list in chronologic order those occurring this month.

Dr Kurt Rasmussen from Senior Research Advisor, Eli Lilly & Co to Director of the Division of Therapuetics and Medical Consequences, National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA)

This was noted in Stat News Plus, behind a pay wall, and in an official announcement from NIDA on April 30, 2018,

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health, welcomed Dr. Kurt Rasmussen today as the Director of the Division of Therapeutics and Medical Consequences (DTMC). Dr. Rasmussen’s career spans more than 30 years of research and leadership experiences in pharmacology and neuroscience therapeutics.

Dr. Rasmussen comes to NIDA from Eli Lilly & Co., where he served as a senior research advisor, leading drug discovery research programs.

At least he is an actual biomedical researcher.

I could not find any information on whether he has ongoing financial ties to Eli Lilly, e.g., stock holdings.

Dr Richard Stone from Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton, [a Management Consultancy] to Temporary Executive in Charge of the Veterans Health Administration

Per the Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2018,

The Department of Veterans Affairs will replace the acting head of its health care system with a temporary appointee on Wednesday, the VA’s acting secretary said Tuesday, though the department still hasn’t settled on a permanent replacement to lead the sprawling division.

Dr. Richard Stone will take over the Veterans Health Administration, the VA’s acting secretary, Peter O’Rourke, told reporters. The health administration is one of the three main branches of the VA and comprises more than 1,500 health-care facilities, thousands of physicians and nurses and a budget of about $70 billion to treat some nine million veterans.

Also

Dr. Stone, a retired Army doctor, previously served at the VA as deputy undersecretary for health before becoming a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton focused on military health.

Booz Allen Hamilton is a management consulting firm.  The Booz Allen Hamilton press release of January 29, 2016, issued when Dr Stone joined the firm, described his responsibilities 

General Stone will serve as medical advisor for Booz Allen’s healthcare clients who are transforming healthcare delivery in the defense, civil, and commercial markets. He will assume a leadership role in the firm’s work for the Military Health System (MHS) across the Services and ultimately across the new Defense Health Agency (DHA) and Enhanced Multi-Service Markets (eMSMs).

Booz Allen Hamilton apparently does not widely advertise the identities of its clients, but on the Markets section of its website, claims

We serve commercial clients across all industries, including some of the largest organizations in critical infrastructure sectors like financial services, energy, healthcare, and manufacturing, and we have a thriving cadre of international clients in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

So presumably Dr Stone had responsibilities helping big commercial health care firms improve their bottom lines. In his new position, Dr Stone may be in a position to influence how some such big firms interact with the VA in an administration that is increasingly advocating privatization of many VA functions.

Paul Mango from Director, McKinsey & Company, [a Management Consultancy] to Chief of Staff and Principal Deputy Administrator, Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)

Per the Philadelphis Inquirer on July 24, 2018,

Paul Mango, a former health-care consultant who lost a bid this year to be the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, is joining the Trump administration.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is housed in the Department of Health and Human Services, on Tuesday named Mango chief of staff and chief principal deputy administrator.
In addition,

Mango, who lives outside Pittsburgh, was a longtime executive at the consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

It appeared he needed something new to do.  He had left his very long-term position with McKinsey & Company to run for Governor of Pennsylvania in 2017, per Politics PA,

PoliticsPA has learned that Gubernatorial Candidate Paul Mango of Allegheny County is no longer with McKinsey & Company. This move could signal he is closer to an official announcement of a run for Governor.

Mango left the firm earlier this year. He joined McKinsey in 1988,

But then, per the Inquirer,

He finished second in a three-candidate primary in May for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, losing to former State Sen. Scott Wagner.

leaving Mr Mango temporarily unemployed.  His new employment apparently was not due to any actual background or expertise in medicine, health care, or public health,

An Army veteran, Mango graduated from the U.S. Military Academy and Harvard Business School.

The Inquirer article suggests Mr Tango was attractive to the Trump regime more for his political views than any expertise or lack thereof in health care,

Mango ran as a social conservative who attacked Wagner for supporting anti-discrimination legislation that would protect LGBT individuals. He said during the campaign that he supported work requirements for able-bodied adults on Medicaid. The Trump administration has adopted that approach.

Mr Mango does claim expertise as a business manager in the health care sphere.  He has an affiliation with the University of Pennsylvania's  Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics in the Leonard Davis Institute.  His profile there explains his former work at McKinsey thus,

Mr. Paul Mango is a Director for McKinsey & Company and leads the North American Payor/Provider practice. Mr. Mango has been addressing new approaches to medical management, development of distinctive service strategies, physician channel management effectiveness, and applying lean manufacturing principles to patient care delivery processes. He has led health care engagements spanning a broad spectrum of strategy, operations and organization topics related to these new approaches. Paul works extensively with some of the country’s largest payers and providers....

McKinsey & Company does not advertise its clients, but it is likely that the Payor/ Provider group worked with major, non-profit and for-profit hospital systems and health insurers.  Its website discusses its "payor strategy" thus,

The challenges facing the leaders of payor organizations—improving financial performance, increasing cost effectiveness, improving population health status, and boosting quality of care—are not new. What is different today is the increasing need to address them all.

Our strategy work focuses on driving value. The starting point varies depending on the clients and geography, but whether we are supporting a public payor, a private payor, or a mix, we have a deep understanding of the complexities our clients face and can draw upon our international experience for best practices and key insights.

Its website also discusses "provider performance" thus,

We help hospitals implement strategies, operating models, and organizational enhancements that sustain improvements in quality of care and boost cost effectiveness.

So presumably Mr Tango's responsibilities including the cost effectiveness of commercial health insurance firms and quite possibly for-profit hospital systems.  In his new position with CMS, Mr Mango may be in able to influence how big payors and providers interact with the Medicare and Medicaid systems, potentially to their benefit.


Chris Traylor from the [Health Care Consultancy] Advanced Perspectives Group to Deputy Administrator for Strategic Iniatives for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) of DHHS

On July 24, 2018, an announcement from CMS noted that Chris Taylor was joining the organization along with Mr Mango,

Chris Traylor joins the Office of the Administrator as the Deputy Administrator for Strategic Initiatives. Chris comes to CMS with over 26 years of public sector service in the area of healthcare and social services. His lengthy public service career in Texas concluded in 2016 when he retired as the Executive Commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) after previously serving as the commission’s Chief Deputy Executive Commissioner.

So it appears Mr Taylor has a long experience in health care management within state government.  I could find nothing to indicate he has any direct experience or expertise in medicine, the actual provision of health care, or public health.  But also,

Since 2016, Chris has been leading a healthcare consulting firm serving clients in hospital operations and finance, long term services and supports, dental and oral health services, managed care and bio-health.

It appeared that since 2016, he worked for the Advanced Perspectives Group, which is, per its web-site,

a newly formed consortium of uniquely qualified consultants who have worked extensively in the health and human services arena both at the state and federal levels. Collectively, we have over 200 years of experience working in a variety of leadership positions in state and federal government. This experience brings our clients an important resource and an unparalleled understanding of agency operations and policy formulation-which enables us to help our clients create solutions that fit within the framework of Texas Health and Human agencies, their federal partners, and the policies that fall within those jurisdictions.

Advanced Perspectives Group, like other commercial health care consultancies, does not advertise its clients, but the biographies of individual principals suggest that clients include for-profit health care corporations.  Again, in his new position Mr Traylor may be able to influence how such corporations interact with Medicare and Medicaid. 

Discussion

So this round of revolving door transitions featured a top pharmaceutical company researcher going to a leadership position at the NIH, which was considered long ago as a producer or unbiased science; and one physician-manager and two pure managers going from big management consultancies to DHHS.  All these consultancies seem to have thriving businesses working with big commercial health care firms. So the Trump regime continues to stock top health care leadership positions with people from the commercial health care world.  These leadership positions will allow them to to control contracting with, policies that affect, and regulation of big health care corporations, including those they worked with or for, and their competitors, for that matter.

So, as I have said before, e.g., three and four months ago,

The revolving door is a species of conflict of interest. Worse, some experts have suggested that the revolving door is in fact corruption.  As we noted here, the experts from the distinguished European anti-corruption group U4 wrote,

The literature makes clear that the revolving door process is a source of valuable political connections for private firms. But it generates corruption risks and has strong distortionary effects on the economy, especially when this power is concentrated within a few firms.

The ongoing parade of people transiting the revolving door from industry to the Trump regime once again suggests how the revolving door may enable certain of those with private vested interests to have disproportionate influence on how the government works.  The country is increasingly being run by a cozy group of insiders with ties to both government and industry. This has been termed crony capitalism. The latest cohort of revolving door transits suggests that regulatory capture is likely to become much worse in the near future.

Remember to ask: cui bono? Who benefits? The net results are that big health care corporations increasingly control the governmental regulatory and policy apparatus.  This will doubtless first benefit the top leadership and owners/ stockholders (when applicable) of these organizations, who are sometimes the same people, due to detriment of patients' and the public's health, the pocketbooks of tax-payers, and the values and ideals of health care professionals.  

 The continuing egregiousness of the revolving door in health care shows how health care leadership can play mutually beneficial games, regardless of the their effects on patients' and the public's health.  Once again, true health care reform would cut the ties between government and corporate leaders and their cronies that have lead to government of, for and by corporate executives rather than the people at large.
 

Free Press? Don't Need No Stinkin' Free Press - Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Tries to Intimidate Modern Healthcare Journalist

Remember the good ol' days, when most US challenges to free speech or the free press in health care came from aggrieved corporate or academic managers?  Now government health agencies have gotten into the act, never mind First Amendment guarantees of free speech and a free press.

CMS Attempted to Intimidate a Journalist for Modern Healthcare

This story first appeared on the blog of the Association of Health Care Journalists, and has now been summarized in only one media outlet, The Hill.  Per Felice Freyer, the Vice President of the AHCJ, Virgil Dickson, a reporter for Modern Healthcare, wrote a

Jan. 23 story about the abrupt resignation of Brian Neale, an official who oversaw Medicaid and helped move it in more conservative direction.

After providing statements from [director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Seema] Verma and Neale, Dickson quoted 'industry insiders' who said the departure was prompted by 'some sort of disagreement between Verma and Neale that erupted in the past few days.' He also mentioned that one source said Neale had been concerned about the workload. 

That rather bland report seemed to displease the management of CMS.  Ms Freyer noted,

After the article appeared, Dickson received an email from Brett O’Donnell, a communications contractor working for CMS. O’Donnell called reports of a disagreement or workload problems 'false speculation' and said it was 'irresponsible' to mention them without more details.

Dickson stood his ground, noting that the information came from multiple, reliable sources. But he agreed to speak with Neale for clarification, and subsequently added Neale’s denial of a disagreement.

That was not enough for Mr O'Donnell:

The next day, O’Donnell wrote to Dickson’s editor, Matthew Weinstock, asserting that the article was inaccurate and demanding that the references to workload and the disagreement be excised. O’Donnell’s email also stated: 'Short of fully correcting the piece we will not be able to include your outlet in further press calls with CMS.'

The next week,

 Virgil Dickson, Washington bureau chief for Modern Healthcare — believed the agency was making good on its threat on Thursday when, he said, his phone went mute during a CMS press call and a woman’s voice told him he was not allowed to participate. An editor later confirmed with CMS officials that he had been banned from press calls, Dickson said.

The Context of the Intimidation


CMS is, of course, a government agency, and so must heed the First Amendment of the US Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights,

Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press

Nonetheless, this appeared to be a clear attempt to intimidate a reporter trying to uphold the tradition and guaranteed Constitutional right of freedom of the press.  As Ms Freyer wrote,

the attempt to alter a story by threatening to cut off access raises deep concerns among journalists.

'Administrator Verma seems to think she can bury inconvenient facts by threatening reporters with blacklisting,' said Ivan Oransky, M.D., president of the Association of Health Care Journalists, the world’s largest organization of reporters, editors, and producers covering health care.

'That tactic won’t work – truth will out,' Oransky said. 'But the very act of trying to stifle a press report is a frightening assault on the First Amendment. AHCJ intends to vigorously protest this bullying.'

Furthermore,

Aurora Aguilar, editor-in-chief of Modern Healthcare, told AHCJ that the incident is unlike anything she has seen in more than 20 years in journalism.

'I don’t think I’ve ever come across a situation where I was asked to remove something from a story in a way that felt like censorship,' she said.

Making this all the more extraordinary, consider some more background.  Modern Healthcare is hardly some revolutionary pamphlet, and Virgil Dickson was not aspiring to be another Thomas Paine.  As Ms Freyer wrote,

Aguilar said Dickson is known as a thorough and fair reporter. Modern Healthcare, whose subscribers are chiefly executives from health care systems and insurance companies, publishes articles about CMS once or twice a day.  

As an aside, Mr O'Donnell, who seemed to be acting as Seema Verma's bully, is not a CMS, or government employee.

O’Donnell, the consultant who threatened to blackball Modern Healthcare, is not a member of the media affairs offices for CMS or for HHS.

He was only described as a "contractor."  He also is a contractor with a checkered past.

He is a Republican strategist who has helped GOP candidates in their political campaigns. In 2015,O’Donnell pleaded guilty to lying to U.S. House ethics investigators about how much campaign work he did with money that came from office accounts rather campaign accounts.

The USA Today story linked above further stated that his guilty plea

is the first time anyone has been charged with a federal crime for lying to the House Office of Congressional Ethics, which was set up in 2008 to vet allegations against lawmakers and staff and recommend further action to the House Ethics Committee.

The charges against him included,

during his interview with OCE investigators, O'Donnell 'knowingly and intentionally made several false statements to OCE in an effort to minimize and conceal the true nature and scope of his role as it related to [Broun's] campaigns.' For example, he told OCE investigators, 'I never felt like any of my campaign work was expected as part of my duties.'

Summary and Discussion

It appears that  respected reporter for a well-known US health care business publication was barred from participation in CMS conference calls after some rather mild reporting on his part offended CMS leadership.  There seemed to be an attempt to intimidate the reporter by a federal "contractor" paid by CMS, a contractor who was a criminal, that is, who had pleaded guilty to a federal crime of lying to the Conressional Ethics office. 

 How far have we descended.

On Health Care Renewal we have been writing about attempts to limit free speech or free discussion in the press in the health care sphere for more than 10 years.  Through 2015, nearly every case we discussed involved large academic institutions, hospital systems, or for-profit health care corporations trying to limit criticism of their products, actions, leadership, etc.

I do not recall any serious cases involving US government agencies.  After all, the US has a long tradition of freedom of speech and the press, enshrined in our constitution.

However, in 2016, we started viewing with alarm the implications of candidate then President Donald Trump's apparent attempts to intimidate the press and citizens who exercise their rights of free speech (e.g., look here).  Now we have a US government health agency slipping into the role of thought police, and using the hired services of a federal criminal to intimidate a journalist.

The anechoic effect is now being shrouded in much deeper shadows.  We may need a new Thomas Paine.

ADDENDUM 13 February, 2018 - This post was republished in OpEd News on February 12, 2018.

"The Censorship That It is" - Now Threatens US Government Health Agencies (DHHS, CMS, CDC)

On Health Care Renewal we discus the dark side of health care, particularly of the leadership and governance of health care, that has enabled health care dysfunction.  Our discussions are based on publicly available information, often produced by dogged health care journalism.

Uur work has become more difficult as journalism is challenged by economic circumstances.  Yet now there are worse threats.  Despite First Amendment protections of freedom of speech and the press, journalism is now under fire from the highest reaches of US government.

Information Blockade at the Department of Health and Human Services

Two recent articles in the Columbia Review of Journalism pointed to specific problems  The first, "Under Trump, Health Reporters Confront an Information Blockade," September 7, 2017, focused on decreasing transparency at the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), and its Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).  It provided numerous examples of officials failing to respond to apparently straightforward requests for legitimate health care information.  For example,

Washington Post healthcare reporter Paige Winfield Cunningham recently raised a few serious questions about how the Trump administration planned to manage Obamacare’s fall enrollment season. 'The six-week sign-up period will be the first handled exclusively by an administration that’s hostile to the Affordable Care Act,' Cunningham wrote, 'and one that hoped by now to see Congress pass legislation unraveling much of the law.'

Any reporter might have asked the questions Cunningham put to the Department of Health and Human Services, some of which she published in her daily Health 202 column:

Will the government contact current enrollees to alert them that sign-ups will last just 45 days, about half as long as in the past three years? Will HHS run call centers for consumers who need help as they look for plans? Will the HealthCare.gov computer system be adjusted to accommodate a possible crush of shoppers given the shorter sign-up period? And how will automatic enrollment be handled?

HHS offered no answers, although a spokesperson for the department’s communications staff did provide Cunningham with a statement: 'As open enrollment approaches, we are evaluating how best to serve the American people who access coverage on HealthCare.gov.' Even that statement did not stand for long, reported Cunningham:

An hour later, the spokeswoman, Jane Norris, requested that the statement be withdrawn, saying that she did not have permission to release it. When I asked her again for detailed answers, neither she nor anyone else at HHS responded further.

'Nobody at HHS ever reaches out to me,' Cunningham told CJR during an interview.

Also,

Matt Wynn, data reporter for MedPage Today, went public with his troubles prying loose the data underlying a series of maps CMS sent out this summer. One map published in early June identified counties without insurers selling policies on healthcare.gov this fall, and a news release announced at least 35,000 active Exchange participants live in counties projected to be without coverage in 2018.' Wynn asked CMS to see the numbers supporting those conclusions.

I shot an email to the media relations office in the department, asking for the data behind the map.

About an hour later I got a response. No further information would be shared at this time, wrote Shelby Venson-Smith, a public affairs specialist. Adding insult to injury, the non-response was not to be used as a direct quote, the email said.

However, while DHHS and CMS officials resisted responding to uncomplicated requests for information,

they seem to have plenty to say in their news releases and email blasts, which disparage the health law and sound more like campaign propaganda and GOP talking points than routine communications from a federal agency. The Obama administration was not shy about using the same PR tools to boost the ACA. But messages from HHS now feel substantively different, perhaps because they are aimed at denigrating a law they have a legal responsibility to administer.

Thus officials at DHHS seem to now be more interested in following the party line of the current administration than in providing basic information to the public.

Many other health care journalists experienced similar problems, including Charles Ornstein from ProPublica, Dan Diamond of Politico, Harris Meyer of Modern Healthcare, and Noam Levy of the Los Angeles Times.

Trudy Lieberman, the author of the CJR article, wrote,

HHS and CMS are powerful agencies that could decide the future of critical programs like Medicaid and Medicare, the Obamacare insurance marketplaces, and whether or not hospitals are considered safe. But when agency press officials avoid interviews and refuse to answer questions, it’s hard to present their positions fairly and understand whose side they are on. Government agencies are supposed to be objective about industry practices under their jurisdiction. But if reporters cannot get honest information about the industries they regulate, where can they go?

Kathryn Foxhall, who "works with the Society of Professional Journalists on freedom of information issues," put it this way,

I don't see the administration ever stopping what they are doing, unless we as journalists pull out all stops and call it the censorship that it is.

Public Health Without Public Information?

Worse, one week later, CJR published another article  on the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC).  The CDC is the lead US public health agency.

Axios published text from a late August email by a CDC public affairs officer that directs staff to route any correspondence with journalists—'everything from formal interview requests to the most basic of data requests'—through the communication office at its Atlanta headquarters:

'The message—sent by public affairs officer Jeffrey Lancashire and dated Aug. 31—instructs all CDC employees not to speak to reporters, ‘even for a simple data-related question’… Lancashire did not respond to requests for comment about the policy. But I’d love to know what harm was being done by CDC employees answering ‘the most basic of data requests.’'

Thus CDC officials now seem to want to substitute public relations for straightforward information provision.  Given that the mission of CDC is public health, this seems to be an example of mission-hostile management, a concept we have used most often to refer to the management of private health care organizations, not US government agencies.  Charles Ornstein of ProPublica commented

This is genuinely disturbing. The idea that someone at CDC headquarters needs to sign off on responses to basic data requests shows a level of media control beyond which I have ever seen. What’s next?

Felice Freyer of the Boston Globe tweeted

CDC is employed by taxpayers. Why shouldn't its work be readily shared with them?

At Health Care Renewal, we have often discussed the anechoic effect, a taboo against public discussion of many aspects of health care dysfunction, particularly those that might discomfit people who are personally profiting from the current system.  In particular, the currently dysfunctional health care system has made the leaders of big health organizations, particularly for-profit corporations,  hugely wealthy.  Furthermore, big health care organizations have been eager to develop financial relationships with health care professionals, academics, leaders of non-profit organizations and NGOs, etc, leading to a web of conflicts of interest draped over health care.  Who wants to speak out when doing so may offend not only distant CEOs, but also one's colleagues, bosses, friends, relatives etc who may have financial ties to those CEOs' corporations?  Furthermore, who wants to speak out when large corporations command huge marketing and public relations operations that can be used to drown out unwanted ideas, and legal departments ready to threaten litigation?

Now government health care officials seem to be enlarging their own public relations efforts while shutting off access of honest information.  This will only make open discussion of the true causes of health care dysfunction more difficult. 

Even more chilling is the threat that health care officials now may be attempting actual censorship.  We have depended on health care journalists to root out bad behaviors that lead to health care dysfunction, and by doing break taboos about discussion such behaviors.  Up to now we have assumed at least that government would not make it harder for journalists to do their job, protected by the Bill of Rights protections of free speech and a free press.  But now the current administration seems to be taking the side of censorship.

From Censoship to Incitement of Violence?

Even worse, some worry that the regime's hostility to journalists  threatens their actual harm.  In early September, the New York Times reported on comments by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who

was reacting to Mr. Trump’s recent comments at a rally in Phoenix during which he spoke of 'crooked media deceptions' in reports of the violent clashes at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that resulted in the death of a counterprotester.

In Phoenix, the president’s words also appeared to whip up audience hostility toward journalists.

The failing @nytimes writes false story after false story about me. They don't even call to verify the facts of a story. A Fake News Joke! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2017

'It’s really quite amazing when you think that freedom of the press, not only a cornerstone of the Constitution but very much something the United States defended over the years, is now itself under attack from the president himself,' [UN official] Mr. al-Hussein said. 'It’s a stunning turnaround.'

Furthermore,

'To call these news organizations fake does tremendous damage,' Mr. al-Hussein added. 'I believe it could amount to incitement. At an enormous rally, referring to journalists as very, very bad people — you don’t have to stretch the imagination to see then what could happen to journalists.'

Ominously, the response from the White House included more unsubstantiated charges of "false narratives," and threatened media tha fails to be responsible as judged by the regime, never mind the First Amendment and its promise of free speech and a free press. 

the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in an emailed statement, 'We believe in free press and think it is an important part of our democracy, but the press also has a big responsibility to the American people to be truthful. Their job is to report the news, not create it.

'Is it not ‘dangerous’ for the media,' she continued, 'to create false narratives and overzealous attacks against the president that the American people chose to be their leader? The president is focused on growing our economy, creating jobs, securing our border and protecting Americans. Since those are also the priorities of most Americans, hopefully the media will make covering them theirs.'

Strong, even overzealous verbal and written attacks on politicians, the president included, have been essential parts of American democracy since the Bill of Rights was ratified.  The First Amendment shows that our political system values such boisterous discourse.  The White House press secretary thus threatened not only the press but the fundamental US system of government.  

Strategic Hostility

Finally, there is an argument that the regime's attacks on the media may not be just reckless, but  strategic and calculated.  The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right of freedom of opinion and expression, Prof David Kaye of University of California - Irvine School of Law, wrote,

The President’s attacks may be reckless – who knows whether someone in his audience will take the President’s word as license to take action against enemies of the American people? – but they are not without purpose. They have concrete aims: to intimidate reporters into certain kinds of coverage, or clarify for his favored outlets what coverage he desires, or plant the seeds of doubt about news stories (such as the Russia investigation led by Robert Mueller).

Also,

However, when we tie together the jeremiads and rhetoric with what the Trump administration is doing in other governing spaces, the practice of attacking the press becomes clearer as policy than solely reckless rant.

First, the attack on the press is not merely rhetorical; it is increasingly reflected in policy.

And,

Second, Trump’s incendiary statements work in tandem with a pattern of lying and disinformation, both aiming to limit the accessibility of truthful information. 

And,

Third, the administration operates as if it has something to hide.

Who knows what they might be hiding.  But there certainly have been plenty of accusations of  severe conflicts of interest and corruption affecting the Trump presidency?

Summary

Up to last year, I was cautiously optimistic that the anechoic effect was starting to erode, enabling the health care discussion to begin to encompass the deeper causes of health care dysfunction.  Since November, however, we seem to be going backward.  What little openness and transparency that were developing are at risk of sinking under a new tide of propaganda and censorship.  My concerns have primarily been about health care and health care dysfunction, but the larger trends threaten our whole society and the ability of the US to maintain itself as a republic.  Ben Franklin's warning becomes more acute.  What we have is only 

A republic if you can keep it. 

That will now take some work.  

Making Health Care Conflicts of Interest Great Again: A Consultant to Medicaid and Simultaneously to Medicaid Vendors for CMS?

President Trump campaigned on behalf of the neglected middle class, but at least in the health care sphere, those he has chosen for their advice or considered for nomination seemed to be more the corporate class.

Tomorrow, Ms Seema Verma, nominated by the Trump administration to be director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), one of the most powerful US government health care positions, will have an opportunity to appear before a Senate committee.  Ms Verma, unlike some other people President Trump has considered for health care leadership or advisory positions,  does seem to have a background in health care policy, if not actual on the ground health care.  But like many of those people, she has been accused of having important conflicts of interest.

Working as a Indiana State Consultant on Medicaid While Consulting for a Prominent Medicaid Vendor


Back in 2014, the Indianapolis Star reported on conflicts of interest affecting Ms Verma, then a consultant to Indiana state government on Medicaid services, while her company simultaneously worked for a Hewlett-Packard subsidiary that was a vendor to the Indiana Medicaid program.

The Star described Ms Verma's work for the state thus:

Verma enjoys a tremendous amount of sway for a private contractor. She has her own office at the state government center. Earlier this year, Pence turned to her to broker a deal with the state's hospital industry to help finance his plan to expand the Healthy Indiana Plan. And when Verma and one of Pence's Cabinet members — Family and Social Services Administration Secretary Debra Minott — butted heads over how soon to roll out the program, it was Minott who lost her job.

Verma's influence reaches back at least a decade and across the administrations of four governors, two from each party. During his first term, Gov. Mitch Daniels tapped Verma to help create a new health-care plan to address the state's uninsured population. Her solution: the Healthy Indiana Plan, a new low-income health insurance program that features high deductibles and requires participants to contribute a portion of their income to a health savings account.

Furthermore, in 2014,

Now, Pence wants to expand the plan to an additional 350,000 low-income Hoosiers through what he's calling HIP 2.0. And like Daniels, he turned to Verma for help in developing the plan and negotiating a financing agreement with the state's hospital industry. If approved by the federal government, billions of new Medicaid funds would flow to the state.

However, at the same time Verma and her company had this powerful role for the state, she also worked for HP.

HP's claims management and information system contracts show it has agreed since 2007 to pay Verma's company $1.2 million as a subcontractor for 'health consulting services.'

Yet Verma's work for the state clearly affected HP.

her duties involve crafting requirements for contractors, negotiating with contractors and supervising vendors. Her company's website also says she provided 'requirements for the state's three technology vendors to support HIP.' That would include Hewlett-Packard. One contract gives her the authority to 'initiate and/or track' a contract or contract amendments with the state's fiscal intermediary, which is HP. Another puts her in charge of technical changes to the state's medical management information system, which is operated by HP.

HP clearly had a major relationship with the state.

During that time, HP received more than $500 million in state contracts, including millions of dollars in contract changes to accommodate the Healthy Indiana Plan that Verma helped create and other new programs.

In 2014, the Star made a strong argument that Verma had a major conflict of interest, yet she appeared not to have made it explicit, or perhaps disclose it at all. 

'Certainly on the face of it, there is the appearance of a conflict,' said Trevor Brown, an expert on government purchasing and director of Ohio State University's John Glenn School of Public Affairs.

If Verma was a federal contractor, her dual roles 'would certainly raise tremendous concern for regulators and purchasing officials,' he said. 'This is exactly the kind of thing that would land an agency in a hearing before a legislative oversight committee.'

Lawmakers in Indiana, however, were unaware of Verma's work for HP.

'I was only aware she was working for the state,' said Sen. Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis, chairwoman of the Senate Health Committee.

'There certainly appears to be the potential for conflict, and appearances matter,' said Ed Clere, R-New Albany, chairman of the House Health Committee

Verma's arrangement with HP also came as a surprise to former FSSA Secretary Debra Minott, who said she learned about it sometime in 2013.

'We had delayed paying an HP invoice because of an issue we were trying to resolve, and HP sent Seema to our CFO to resolve the issue on their behalf,' Minott said. 'I was troubled because I thought Seema was our consultant.'

At the time, though, all of this was legal, since Indiana had very weak regulations on conflicts of interest affecting state government operations.

Minott said when she brought her concerns to FSSA's ethics officer, she was told Indiana's ethics rules didn't apply to conflicts of interests among state contractors.

The lack of any such rule is just the latest in a litany of loopholes that good government advocates say Indiana needs to address.

A 2017 Update: Still Working for Hewlett-Packard, While Advising Nine State Governments

Apparently there were no changes in Ms Verma's relationships with the state of Indiana, and in her conflicts of interest since 2014. In fact, on February 14, 2017, the Associated Press published an updated description of her conflicts (via WKRN). Apparently, her conflicts of interest actually affected eight states other than Indiana.

A review by The Associated Press found Seema Verma and her small Indianapolis-based firm made millions through consulting agreements with at least nine states while also working under contract for Hewlett Packard. The company holds a financial stake in the health care policies Verma's consulting work helped shape in Indiana and elsewhere.

Her business activities continued to be very lucrative.

Since 2011, her firm, SVC Inc., collected more than $6.6 million in consulting fees from the state of Indiana, records show. At the same time, records indicate she also received more than $1 million through a contract with Hewlett, the nation's largest operator of state Medicaid claims processing systems.

Last year, her firm collected an additional $316,000 for work done for the state of Kentucky as a subcontractor for HP Enterprises, according to documents obtained by AP through public records requests.

Also,

Verma reported her salary with SVC is $480,000 and her business income from the company as nearly $2.2 million.

The AP found more experts to state that Ms Verma has serious conflicts of interest,

However, legal and ethics experts contacted by AP say Verma's work for Hewlett, and offshoot HP Enterprises, raised questions about where her loyalties lay — to the company, or to state taxpayers.

Richard Painter, former President George W. Bush's chief ethics lawyer, called Verma's arrangement a 'conflict of interest' that 'clearly should not happen and is definitely improper.'

Such arrangements are typically prohibited for rank-and-file state employees under Indiana's ethics rules and laws, but they're murkier when it comes to consulting work. Contractors have often replaced state employees in a GOP bid to drive down the number of public employees and distinctions between the two can be hard to discern.

'She was cloaked with so much responsibility and so much authority, people thought she was a state employee,' said Debra Minot, a former head of Indiana's Family and Social Services Agency under Pence who worked with Verma.

Indiana University law professor David Orentlicher compared Verma's dual employment to an attorney who represents both the plaintiff and the defense in a lawsuit. It's also similar to federal contract negotiator with a side job for a company they regularly negotiate with, he said.

'If you have one person on both sides of the negotiating, they can't negotiate hard for both sides,' said Orentlicher, a former Indiana Democratic state lawmaker.

Ms Verma's conflicts got little notice at the time of her nomination, but the 2014 Indianapolis Star was first noticed by PRWatch in January.

Summary


Revelations about these ongoing conflicts of interest have not apparently caused the Trump administration to rethink her nomination to be head of CMS.

Ms Verma happily went along working as an authoritative consultant for multiple states' Medicaid programs while also working as a consultant for a prominent vendor to these programs.  The 2014 report about these conflicts did not deter her from continuing her lucrative work for parties on both sides of the table.  Apparently, she continued to have similarly conflicted relationships with multiple other states, without anyone being the wiser.

If Ms Verma saw no problem with acting while subject to these conflicts, does anyone seriously expect that as head of the Medicare and Medicaid programs for the whole country she will put theinterests of the forgotten middle, working, and lower class patients who get health care insurance from these programs ahead of the interests of her corporate buddies?

Previously, the Trump administration nominated another heavily conflicted individual to be Secretary of Health and Human Services (look here and here).  He has gotten health advice from a silicon valley magnate who declared corruption was needed to prevent boredom (look here).  Several people he has reportedly considered to run the US Food and Drug Administration had their own substantial conflicts.  One was a  and one was a former pharmaceutical and biotechnology executive (look here and here).  One of the first people he sent to oversee FDA operations was a former pharmaceutical company lobbyist (look here).  A person proposed as "health care czar" is a billionaire biotechnology CEO (look here). 

Are these the sort of people who will first think of the welfare of the forgotten multitudes, or how much wealth they and their cronies can attain?

Finally, the Medicaid program is meant to be part of the safety net for the poorest Americans who cannot afford health insurance.  It seems bitterly ironic that the person proposed to become its leader has become rich as a consultant to state Medicaid programs (note above that Ms Verma made a salary of $480,000 a year, and received "business income" of $2.2 million presumably also a year from her consulting firm).  It is also bitterly ironic that many states have turned much of the operations of their Medicaid programs over to vendors who similarly have made a lot of money from a program for the poor.  

True health care reform requires leadership that puts patients' and the public health ahead of corporate health and managers' enrichment.

NOTE - Post revised on 16 February, 2017, to update links and add discussion of Ms Verma's salary and income.  

Death of EHR "Meaningul Use" imminent. (Hopefully the death of the 'National Programme for Health IT in the HHS' is imminent, too.)

I've written a number of posts on the Orwellian-named "Meaningful Use" experiment with electronic health records systems, imposed upon United States physicians by the Department of Health and Human Services through its Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).

See these posts and others retrieved by query link http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/search/label/meaningful%20use:

Meaningful Use Final Rule: Have the Administration and ONC Put the Cart Before the Horse on Health IT?

Meaningfully Experimental Protocols and Interfaces to Nowhere? Nagging Questions On Healthcare IT Remain

Science or Politics? The New England Journal and "The 'Meaningful Use' Regulation for Electronic Health Records"

"Meaningful Use" not so meaningul: Multiple medical specialty societies now go on record about hazards of EHR misdirection, mismanagement and sloppy hospital computing

EHRs and "Meaningful Use": Begging the Question in the New England Journal of Medicine

The Scientific Justification for Meaningul Use, Stage 2: The NWB Methodology

Meaningful Use and the Devil in the Details: A Reader's View

  
In these posts and others I expressed significant skepticism about the 'Meaningful Use' scheme.

But what did I know?  Our betters in government and academia knew far better how to seriously annoy physicians, make more burdensome (and hence more dangerous) the already onerous task of EHR use, and waste the tax money we hard-working Americans pay to an increasingly bloated bureaucracy that acts as if money grows on trees (the U.S. debt has doubled in recent years to almost $19 billion, see http://www.usdebtclock.org/).

From the horse's mouth (or perhaps the animal's other end) at https://www.healthit.gov/providers-professionals/meaningful-use-definition-objectives:

Meaningful Use Defined

Meaningful use is using certified electronic health record (EHR) technology to:

• Improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities
• Engage patients and family
• Improve care coordination, and population and public health
• Maintain privacy and security of patient health information

I note that none of this was backed by science at the time of its formulation.

The end result of the MU experiment is this:

CMS’s Slavitt: End of meaningful use imminent in 2016
Internal Medicine News
WHITNEY MCKNIGHT
January 12, 2016

http://www.internalmedicinenews.com/practice-economics/health-reform/single-article/cmss-slavitt-end-of-meaningful-use-imminent-in-2016/94653f2ba164a8131ca214d5325c0d74.html

Meaningful use is on its way out.

Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, told investors attending the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference that CMS is pulling back from the health care IT incentive program in the coming months.

“The meaningful use program as it has existed will now be effectively over and replaced with something better,” Mr. Slavitt said. Without providing full details, he said that March 25 would be an important date as concerns the rollout of the new health IT initiatives.

The waste of resources and time, and the alienation of physicians by this grand(-ly foolish) experiment is significant:

“We have to get the hearts and minds of physicians back. I think we’ve lost them,” Mr. Slavitt said.

No foolin'.  Ya think?

This was predictable by anyone with half a brain about healthcare information technology reality.  (It's a real loss that hyper-enthusiast health IT geniuses responsible can't be fired and banned from the domain of healthcare - for life.)

Perhaps the officials at HHS got their first clue about clinician unhappiness via a long January 2015 letter from about 40 medical societies, including the AMA, American College of Physicians, American College of Surgeons, and numerous others that they did not exactly love these systems and the MU experiment.  See my January 28, 2015 post "Meaningful Use not so meaningful: Multiple medical specialty societies now go on record about hazards of EHR misdirection, mismanagement and sloppy hospital computing" at http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2015/01/meaningful-use-not-so-meaningul.html and the letter itself at http://mb.cision.com/Public/373/9710840/9053557230dbb768.pdf.

He noted that, when the meaningful use incentive program began, few physicians and practices used electronic health records and concerns were that many would not willingly embrace information technology. Now that “virtually everywhere care is delivered has a computer,” it’s time to make health care technology serve beneficiaries and the physicians who serve them, Mr. Slavitt said.

The revealing nature of this candid statement is breathtaking.  He's admitting that 1) many physicians, rightfully reluctant to not "willingly embrace" IT, had the technology imposed upon them by government (due to its "concerns") via penalties for non-adopters and 2) with the systems in the physicians' faces at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars that could have been better spent on healthcare itself (e.g., for those subject to 'disparities", i.e., the poor), now it's time to make the systems serve patients and physicians.

Brilliant.

The cost, however, was too high, Mr. Slavitt said. “As any physician will tell you, physician burden and frustration levels are real. Programs that are designed to improve often distract. Done poorly, measures are divorced from how physicians practice and add to the cynicism that the people who build these programs just don’t get it.”

The 'cynicism' (def: inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self-interest; skepticism) that the builders of these programs don't "get it?"  It's not cynicism.  It's a rational conclusion arrived at via empirical observation.

I also recall in the not-so-distant past that physician complaints were dismissed as the complaints of "Luddites."  I've heard this at Informatics meetings, at medical meetings, at commercial health IT meetings (e.g., Microsoft's Health Users Group, and at HIMSS), at government meetings (e.g., GS1 healthcare), and others.

It's rewarding to finally have government officials admit those charges were, to be blunt about it, lies or delusions.

Soon, CMS will no longer reward health care providers for using technology, but will instead focus on patient outcomes through the merit-based incentive pay systems created by last year’s Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) legislation. 

Perhaps that's a move in the right direction; time will tell.  However, I'm sure physicians have GREAT confidence in how well that will work out, yet another government experimental project.

In addition to asking physicians to work with health care IT innovators to create systems that work best according to their practice’s respective needs, CMS is calling on the private sector to create apps and analytic tools that will keep data secure while fostering true and widespread interoperability.

This is in the realm of delusion.  Physicians "asked" to "work with" (for free?) the same "innovators" (i.e, health IT companies) whose "innovation" led to the massive disaffection for today's health IT, and the burdens that technology has placed on the medical profession, nurses and other clinicians as well?   Further, it's actually believed that the companies will listen, when they've failed to do so for several decades running?  My head spins.

Anyone seeking to block data transfer will find CMS is not their friend. Mr. Slavitt said. “We’re deadly serious about interoperability. Technology companies that look for ways to practice data blocking in opposition to new regulations will find that it will not be tolerated.”

And who, exactly, is going to enforce that edict on proprietary systems, which health IT companies view (correctly, from the business perspective) as giving them a competitive edge?  I'm sure the health IT companies, who now hold medicine captive, are shaking in their boots.

Dr. James L. Madara, CEO of the American Medical Association, echoed Mr. Slavitt’s comments on the current, negative impact of EHRs on physicians’ practices. He noted that many physicians are spending at least 2 hours each workday using their EHR and may click up to 4,000 times per 8-hour shift.

I should open a clinic for health IT-caused carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive motion injuries.  Oh wait!  There's no ICD-10 code for that to bill (see http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2016/01/repeated-crushing-by-alligators-and.html).

Dr. Madara outlined three AMA goals to help restore the physician-patient relationship. The first is to restructure the medical school curriculum, which he said essentially is the same as it has been for 100 years. New generations of physicians should be taught how to deliver collaborative care that includes telemedicine, more ambulatory care, and home care. Community-based partnerships, he said, would become key to treating chronic diseases like diabetes and would have to be factored into reimbursement models. The AMA also seeks to improve health outcomes and ensure thriving physician practices.

Central to the AMA’s plan for the future: Helping physicians restructure practice via technology. He announced that the AMA is a founding partner in the Silicon Valley (Calif.) based Health2047, a company focused on supporting health IT and other entrepreneurs in their efforts to provide physicians with digital tools that improve patient outcomes, among other innovations.

As to "helping physicians restructure practice via [information] technology", this seems an example of what I termed "Heath IT hyper-enthusiasm" writ large.  See My March 11, 2012 post "Doctors and EHRs: Reframing the 'Modernists v. Luddites' Canard to The Accurate 'Ardent Technophiles vs. Pragmatists' Reality" at http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2012/03/doctors-and-ehrs-reframing-modernists-v.html.

What is needed, as I have repeatedly written, is not to have physicians "restructure" practice to adopt to IT, rather to restructure IT (the systems themselves, the developmental methodologies, the backgrounds of the industry leadership, the industry itself) to match the needs of physicians and patients.

The AMA holds a minority of the nation's physicians as members; a 2011 article "American Medical Association membership woes continue" (CMAJ. 2011 Aug 9; 183(11): E713–E714, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3153537/) indicated this:

In the early 1950s, about 75% of US physicians were AMA members. That percentage has steadily decreased over the years. In June, at the annual meeting of its policy-making body, the House of Delegates, the AMA announced that it lost another 12 000 members last year. That brings total membership below 216 000. Up to a third of those members don’t pay the full $420 annual dues, including medical students and residents. Not counting those members, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15% of practising US doctors now belong to the AMA.

Hair-brained schemes to "restructure practice via technology" will likely drop those numbers further.

The National Programme for IT in the NHS (NPfIT) died several years ago (http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2011/09/npfit-programme-going-pffft.html).

It is my hope the death of "meaningful use" heralds the death of the equally wasteful and ill-thought-out National Program for health IT in the HHS, a.k.a. HITECH, and a return to recognition of the truth: that health IT is experimental, that it (and its subjects) must be treated with that in mind, that its progress cannot be mandated, and that the technology, as any other IT, needs to be approached with great skepticism e.g. per this article:

Pessimism, Computer Failure, and Information Systems Development in the Public Sector.  (Public Administration Review 67;5:917-929, Sept/Oct. 2007, Shaun Goldfinch, University of Otago, New Zealand).  Cautionary article on IT that should be read by every healthcare executive documenting the widespread nature of IT difficulties and failure, the lack of attention to the issues responsible, and recommending much more critical attitudes towards IT.  link to pdf

-- SS