Howard Dean, Now Employed by Health-Care Lobby Firm, Opposes Bernie Sanders on Single-Payer

[cal04]

Howard Dean is the latest in a string of Hillary Clinton supporters to charge that Bernie Sanders is wrong to support a single payer health care plan. The former chairman of the Democratic National Committee claimed on MSNBC last night that Sanders’s reforms might result in “chaos” because “trying to implement it would in fact undo people’s health care.” Dean added: “That is something people should be concerned about.”

(snip)
Dean, though he rarely discloses the title during his media appearances, now serves as Senior Advisor to the law firm Dentons, where he works with the firm’s Public Policy and Regulation practice, a euphemism for Dentons’ lobbying team. Dean is not a lawyer, but neither is Newt Gingrich, who is among the growing list of former government officials and politicians that work in the Public Policy and Regulation practice of Dentons.


(snip)
In 2009, Dean praised single-payer while speaking on Democracy Now, calling the idea “by far the most economically efficient system.” That’s because, as Dean noted at the time, a Medicare-for-all style single-payer system would cut down on bureaucratic overhead and do a better job at controlling prices. An analysis by University of Massachusetts at Amherst professor Gerald Friedman found that the single-payer plan introduced into the last Congress, for instance, would have save $592 billion, while expanding coverage to all uninsured American, regardless of ability to pay. Over 95 percent of households would see higher after-tax income because of the cost controls and elimination of insurance premiums.

(snip)
After Dean began working in the lobbying industry, he gave a talk about how to navigate the post-Citizens United campaign finance world. “I’ve advised a lot of clients in the industries that I usually end up working with, which are mostly healthcare industries, not to give any money to either side, or if you do, give it to both sides because politicians really don’t know much about the issues,” Dean said. “But they remember the ads, and they remember who was on whose side and who wasn’t, and it makes a big difference.”
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/14/howard-dean-lobbyist/

[notadmblnd]

1. In other words, he was for single payer before someone paid him to be against it?

nt

[Wilms]

2. No. No.

He's evolved.

[libdem4life]

3. Now he's employed in the private sector, so thus the message must match.

Pragmatism. We all have to do it at some time or other. Especially if you're a Progressive in a Right-lurching party. Now we get the chance to make Them be pragmatic.

Go, Bernie!