Revolving Zombies

The defining characteristic of a zombified system is the way it hands out its rewards. In an honest economy, people do their best. They work hard. They take their chances. Some prevail because they are productive. Others are just lucky. The chips fall where they may.

But as the system is taken over by zombies, the chips fall where they are told to fall. Rather than to honest and efficient producers, the rewards go to those who curry favors.

Elizabeth Fowler knows how it works. She labored at the left hand of senator Max Baucus, drafting the collection of crimes and punishments that came to be known as 'Obamacare.' Senator Baucus admitted that he had better things to do than actually read it. But he didn't have to. His chief health policy counsel, the aforementioned Madam Fowler, knew what was in it. As a former top lobbyist for Wellpoint, America's largest health insurance provider, she had made sure the chips went where she wanted.

"If you drew an organization chart of major players in the Senate health care negotiations," wrote Politico at the time, "Fowler would be chief operating officer."

Fowler had already been through the revolving door more than once or twice. She worked for Baucus before joining Wellpoint ... and after. When she came back to Baucus she replaced Michelle Easton, another Wellpoint lobbyist, who helped guide the senator on health policy while Ms. Fowler was on the Wellpoint payroll.

Then, after the legislation was passed, the White House turned to the clever lobbyist to implement it. After all, the sugar spot in the legislation was the provision requiring people to buy products from companies such as Wellpoint, whether they wanted to or not. As America's new Special Assistant to the President for Healthcare and Economic Policy at the National Economic Council, her job was to make sure Wellpoint got a good return on its investment.

And then, in December 2012, whoosh ... she went back through the revolving door. Type in "Elizabeth Fowler" and "revolving door" and you will get the whole story. The 'architect of Obamacare,' say the papers, left the White House to go to the honeypot at Johnson & Johnson.

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