Judgment Day in Washington: Why Andy Slavitt Must Not Run Medicare

The American Medical Money Machine ^ | July 29, 2015 | TAMMM Staff

[Rona Badger]

Many of us cheered in January of this year when Marilyn Tavenner, the woman who headed the disastrous rollout of the healthcare.gov website, announced she’d be stepping down from her position as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). At the time, we weren’t too focused on who would be replacing her.

Waiting in the wings was Andrew M. Slavitt, now Acting Medicare Chief, who had been biding his time as CMS’ deputy administrator since July 2014. Even though he’s been accused of possible cronyism and conflicts of interest, Andy Slavitt has a special brand of insurance that shields him—protection only provided to those with powerful connections and the right pedigree. Why would a man with two successful decades in the private sector want to join such a bloated bureaucracy? Maybe because a dear friend called. Or maybe because he had $4.8 million tax free reasons.

In June 2014, Sylvia Mathews Burwell had just been sworn in as the 22nd Secretary of Health & Human Services (HHS), the position that Marilyn Tavenner reported to as CMS administrator. Almost immediately after Burwell took her oath, she tapped Slavitt to become Tavenner’s deputy administrator, replacing Jonathan Blum. In “response to lessons learned from the rollout,” Burwell had high confidence that Andy Slavitt was the man to help fix healthcare.gov.

Slavitt left his investment banker practice at Goldman Sachs to become a top executive at UnitedHealth Group, where he was responsible for both its Ingenix and Optum divisions. Ingenix had been sued and kicked out of New York in 2011 for price fixing and fraud over flawed calculating algorithms on short payments on claims. Why would Burwell name a tainted executive from a tainted insurance giant to run the largest government agency in the world?

Please read on!

[Intolerant in NJ]

Slavitt left his investment banker practice at Goldman Sachs...Goldman-Sachs - farm team for the 'rat party.....