Just when you thought the Baucus revolving door couldn't spin faster: LittleSis has found that the Senate staffer responsible for devising the tax policies at the heart of the Baucus plan is a former lobbyist for health insurance and pharmaceutical interests, including an insurance industry front group.
Cathy Koch, who heads the Senate Finance committee's tax department, was director of global government affairs at pharmaceutical company Amgen until early 2007. Before that, she worked at Ernst and Young, where she lobbied on behalf of a number of large insurance and pharmaceutical companies, including Aetna, Blue Cross, Eli Lilly, and Pfizer.
Tax incentives and calculations are central to health care reform plan that Baucus sent to members of the Gang of Six this weekend, including a penalty on health insurance companies offering expensive plans. The "Cadillac" plan tax has received significant media attention as a particularly important and controversial feature that targets insurance companies.
Beyond her work for a number of large pharmaceutical and insurance companies, Koch lobbied for the Health Benefits Coalition, an insurance industry front group, from 2001 to 2004. The group successfully fought Kennedy-sponsored legislation calling for a Patients' Bill of Rights. Former insurance executive Wendell Potter has pointed to the group as a textbook example of insurance interests coming together to stymy healthcare reform efforts.
Koch is in good company as a lobbyist-turned-Baucus-staffer. Last week I found that Baucus's chief health aide, Liz Fowler, was an executive at the insurance giant Wellpoint until 2008. Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown has called Fowler the "chief operating officer" of the health care reform process, and the Washington Post's Ezra Klein has called her the most important Senate staffer on healthcare.
