HHS Sends $5.9 Million to Program Run by Obama Buddy (U of Chicago program tied to MO)

The Department of Health and Human Services last week announced it had awarded a $5.9 million grant to a University of Chicago Medical Center program tied to Michelle Obama and run by Eric Whitaker, one of President Obama’s closest friends.

The Urban Health Initiative, which received the award, was originally based on a smaller program launched during the last decade by Michelle Obama, who was an executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center before she departed to become first lady. The UHI is headed up by Obama basketball and golf buddy Whitaker, who has known the president since Obama’s days in law school and who also vacations with the first family.

Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett also has ties to the UHI. Until resigning to go work at the White House, Jarrett was Chairman of the University of Chicago Medical Center Board of Trustees. And in 2007, a PR firm run by former senior White House adviser and Obama political guru David Axelrod provided provided public relations strategy advice to the UHI, according to the Washington Post.

There is no specific evidence that any of those linked to the Obamas, or the Obamas themselves, influenced the HHS decision to grant the funding to the UHI. But the large award raises questions about appearance, given the number of Obama associates connected to the program and the involvement of the first lady with its founding.

The UHI won out over lots of competition. According to HHS, some 3,000 applications were received for a share on the $1 billion in 3-year grants available. Only 26 programs were included in the first batch of awards doled out.

An HHS spokesperson said that while “final determinations” were made by the HHS’s CMS Innovation Center Director, objective standards were used in selecting the awards and the White House was not “in any way” involved in the selection of grantees.

“Applications that met the basic eligibility requirements underwent a competitive, objective review,” the spokesperson said. “Independent health care expert review panels from outside government and staff from all across the Department of Health and Human Services reviewed the applications for how well they met the criteria outlined in the grant solicitation, and made recommendations regarding funding . . . scoring was conducted by an independent panel of content experts that was organized by an experienced contractor.”

The awards have been politicized by the administration, which is touting them as part of its “We Can’t Wait” initiative to create jobs by executive action while the White House “waits” for the Republican-led House to act. The Innovation Center was established under Obamacare.

The Urban Health Initiative was founded to help link low-income patients to health providers in their communities.

According to HHS, UHI received the grant to help it, in partnership with other groups, increase patients’ access to health resources by developing an electronic database of health providers that links to electronic health records maintained by “local safety net providers.”

Last week’s award is not the first time money directed toward the UHI has raised red flags. In September, The Daily Caller reported that the private philanthropy of billionaire Obama supporter and donor George Kaiser had donated $10,000 to the UHI during 2009, the same year Kaiser secured the now-infamous $535 million government loan guarantee to failed solar panel maker Solyndra.

Martha's Vineyard, frolicking with Dr. Eric Whitaker

Obama pal part of fed probe (Dr. Eric Whitaker)

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Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, Susan Sher and their roles played in the University of Chicago Medical Center patient dumping scheme and the whole Obama Culture of Corruption

Excerpt:

Republicans on Capitol Hill are taking a fresh look at one of the seedier Chicago stories from Barack and Michelle Obama’s past in ratcheting up the debate on Obamacare: the University of Chicago Hospital’s “Urban Health Initiative,” which Michelle Obama ran prior to her taking a leave of absence to campaign with her husband in 2007. . . .

It wasn’t just Obama’s wife who was involved in creating the program. Senior White House adviser and political strategist, David Axelrod, and his PR firm in Chicago were retained to develop a media campaign to encourage area residents not to use University of Chicago as a medical facility.

Senior White House official, and Obama friend, Valerie Jarrett served on the board of directors of the hospital and approved the plan for the Urban Health Initiative, and the hiring of Axelrod. . . .

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2008 - Obama's Earmarks: $1 Million for Wife's Hospital

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Patient Dumping at Univ. of Chicago Med. Center

Excerpt:

Video: Did Michelle Obama start a patient-dumping program?

“While Barack Obama presses for health-care reform, Sean Hannity looks at his wife’s efforts to reform medical care at the University of Chicago Medical Center as its vice-president.

In a lengthy segment on last night’s show, Hannity reports on the Urban Health Initiative, a program ostensibly intended to provide the kind of change in health care that President Obama says his program will deliver nationally — fewer emergency room vists, better wellness and prevention care, and lower costs.

However, the people in Chicago see the UHI differently. In practice, it looks more like a patient-dumping scheme to avoid dealing with Medicare/Medicaid patients (via HA reader JiangxiDad):

This came up during the presidential campaign, but just as the conventions and running-mate selection picks had the media blinkered. The Chicago Sun-Times reported on it August 23rd, 2008:

‘Sen. Barack Obama’s wife and three close advisers have been involved with a program at the University of Chicago Medical Center that steers patients who don’t have private insurance — primarily poor, black people — to other health care facilities.

Michelle Obama — currently on unpaid leave from her $317,000-a-year job as a vice president of the prestigious hospital — helped create the program, which aims to find neighborhood doctors for low-income people who were flooding the emergency room for basic treatment.

Hospital officials say such patients hinder their ability to focus on more critically ill patients in need of specialized care, such as cancer treatment and organ transplants.

Obama’s top political strategist, David Axelrod, co-owns the firm, ASK Public Strategies, that was hired by the hospital last year to sell the program — called the Urban Health Initiative — to the community as a better alternative for poor patients. Obama’s wife and Valerie Jarrett, an Obama friend and adviser who chairs the medical center’s board, backed the Axelrod firm’s hiring, hospital officials said.

Another Obama adviser and close friend, Dr. Eric Whitaker, took over the Urban Health Initiative when he was hired at U. of C. in October 2007. Whitaker previously had been director of the Illinois Department of Public Health. Obama has said he recommended Whitaker for the state job, giving his name to Tony Rezko, who helped Gov. Blagojevich assemble his Cabinet. Rezko, a former fund-raiser for Obama and Blagojevich, was convicted in June on federal corruption charges tied to state deals.’

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Obama's Other Chicago Mafia - Who are those guys you always see with the President?

Excerpt:

t's no secret that Obama brought a Chicago contingent with him to the White House. But he doesn't bring David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett along on vacation. He leaves that to a couple other Chicago buddies.

*snip*

Those jobs fall to Eric Whitaker, a Chicago doctor, who is the president's chief of friendship and Marty Nesbitt, a Chicago businessman, who's his secretary of palling around. They shoot hoops together, vacation together, ride bikes and celebrate birthdays together. Obama’s buds even flew to Norway to see their First Friend accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

*snip*

Whitaker and Nesbitt have been friends with Obama for years; Whitaker and Obama played basketball during grad school at Harvard and Nesbitt’s family lives in Obama’s South Side neighborhood.

Unlike Obama’s Axelrod and Jarrett, Whitaker and Nesbitt don’t work for the President. But they're just as loyal.

*snip*

Obama aides did confirm that the two friends had flown for free on Air Force One as guests of the president on official trips, including the trip to Oslo, Norway, to accept the Nobel. The two made their own arrangements to travel to Hawaii when the Obama's vacationed there this summer.

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These creeps just don't know how to do something legally, righteously, or to keep any sacred oaths they've taken ... only scam, con, corrupt and steal .. truly .. the Chicago Way. Damn their souls.

Update from Daily Caller:

“Well, what happened is that after ABC’s Brian Ross broadcast the video tapes of the Rev. Wright ‘God damning America’ and slamming whites and slamming Jews and America, he was contacted by one of Obama’s closest personal friends — a guy who travels on Obama’s plane, who plays basketball with him, who goes on vacation with him,” Klein said.

“His name is Dr. Eric Whitaker. Dr. Whitaker is the vice president of the University of Chicago Medical Center and he’s a member of Obama’s very tight inner circle. And he sent an email to a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ.”

Klein reminded listeners that Whitaker’s hospital is the same one that paid first lady Michelle Obama $316,962 a year to handle community affairs for the University of Chicago Medical Center while her husband served in the U.S. Senate.

In an email, Klein said Whitaker had offered Wright $150,000 “if he would shut-up and not criticize Obama anymore.” When Wright refused Whitaker’s offer, Klein said Obama himself personally met with Wright, which supposedly took place after Obama’s March 18, 2008 “race speech,” confirmed by both Wright’s word and the U.S. Secret Service logs.

Whitaker, who attended Harvard Graduate School in the early 1990s with Obama, was known for having been a proponent of Obama’s health care legislation.

Klein also said Wright told him he “made it comfortable” for Obama to accept Christianity without having renounce his “Islamic background,” which Klein said he has on tape.”

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