Newt Gingrich Had Lucrative Health Industry Ties
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As Newt Gingrich attempts to shrug off his political baggage, the former House speaker is under new scrutiny for having close ties to health care giants and flip-flopping on his statements on health care.
The Center for Health Transformation, which Gingrich founded, raked in millions of dollars from heavy hitters like GE Healthcare and Wellpoint, as first reported by the Washington Post. The group says it does not lobby, but on its website, it touts its ability to build bridges between the federal government and private sector. Among its strengths, the think tank lists its unparalleled “network of allies” in the federal government, states, corporations and hospitals; “coalition building capabilities,” and “media visibility.”
Gingrich no longer owns the company and left when he decided to run for president. But his work with the group shows that the former congressman from Georgia has yet to overcome the challenge of reconciling his two roles of businessman and politician.
He has blasted the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act, saying in a video that he is “completely opposed to the Obamacare mandate on individuals,” and that he “fought it for two and half years at the Center for Health Transformation.” But the group, which Gingrich founded, actually supported imposing a mandate on those who made more than $50,000 per year.
CHT spokeswoman Susan Meyers said the group advocates such a move at the state level, not solutions that are “forced at the federal level” and that Gingrich supports “free market solutions.”
“We believe that any idea that states want to originate, that’s fine,” Meyers told ABC News. “It should be their prerogative if they choose to do that.”
Still, Gingrich hasn’t made that clear. In fact, he criticized opponent Mitt Romney for implementing such a “bureaucratic” mandate in Massachusetts.
CHT also advocates centralizing electronic medical records, a key component of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which the organization has denounced.
“We believe in that for patient safety because too many medical errors occur when paper records are used,” Meyers said when asked about the contradiction. “That’s something Newt advocated years ago, long before President Obama.”
Gingrich also broke from the right when he praised his client Gundersen Lutheran Health System‘s end-of-life best practice as one that “empowers patients and families.” At the height of the health care debate in which end-of-life care became a key dividing issue between Republicans and Democrats, Gingrich stood out alone in the Republican field.
Gingrich’s campaign has said the firm brings in revenue of $5 million a year, a figure Meyers would not confirm.
Gingrich’s other businesses are also under the spotlight. Through Gingrich Group, the former House speaker consulted for reportedly $1.8 million for eight years for Freddie Mac, the federally-backed mortgage giant that most conservatives say should be eliminated. While Gingrich has denied lobbying for them, he hasn’t provided a viable explanation of what kind of services he provided to an organization that he himself recently said should be abolished. In 2008, he demanded that President Obama and other members of Congress return the money they received from them, and more recently said Democrats like Rep. Barney Frank should be jailed for having ties with lobbyists at those organizations.
The connections with Washington insiders and multi-million dollar corporations makes it hard for Gingrich to cast himself as an outsider and clouds his “new Newt” campaign, experts say.
“Even if there’s no ethical or legal impropriety, the optics are bad,” said John Pitney Jr., politics professor at Claremont McKenna College who worked for Gingrich. But “for Newt, it’s not at all surprising. He had to deal with ethics questions throughout his tenure as speaker. … The idea that questions are emerging about ethics is very unsurprising.”
As he rises in the polls, Gingrich’s inconsistencies are increasingly coming under the spotlight.
In 1989, Gingrich co-sponsored the Global Warming Prevention Act and in 2008 appeared with then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi to warn about global warming. Now he says he doesn’t know whether climate change is really occurring and called that ad “the dumbest single thing” he’s done in recent years.
Gingrich also once advocated imposed mandatory limits on carbon dioxide emissions, but has recently become a vocal critic of the cap-and-trade bills.
He has also flip-flopped on Libya, first criticizing President Obama for intervening and then saying later he would have sent forces there.
It remains to be seen whether Gingrich can overcome these hurdles but the results of this scrutiny could be damaging, experts say.
“A lot of people watching the debates saw him as a fresh face. These stories remind people that he’s been on the shelf for a very long time,” Pitney said. “He has to show a level of discipline that he has not previously shown. Maybe he can pull it off… But if you’re making an estimate on the basis of history, it would be a very long shot indeed.”
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The biggest hypocrisy is going to happen this spring when the Supreme Court rules, as they most assuredly will, that mandated health insurance is unconstitutional. That means all those people in Massachusetts won’t have to buy health insurance. I have not heard about any challenges in Massachusetts now. It seems its working fine. . How is Romney going to explain his position on this?
Posted by: tmferretti | November 18, 2011, 3:00 pm 3:00 pm
Posted by: tmferretti—-No, the states can mandate it, the feds can’t. That is what the decision will mean. The sates that wanted to could have passed their own versions of Mass Care, they chose not to, and 26 States challenged the law. They could have put everybody in Medicaid/Medicare, and raised a tax, they choose not to. They could have written a Constitutional Amendment, and put it up, they choose not to. Whether it is the right thing to do, doesn’t matter. IT is whether it is the legal thing to do, and there where many legal paths to provide Health Care, this isn’t one of them.
Posted by: snewsom2997 | November 18, 2011, 3:10 pm 3:10 pm
SNEWSOM2997
I beg to disagree; if the Supreme Court rules that mandated health care insurance is unconstitutional that means no state can decide it is constructional for them. . It’s just like the integration and the abortion rulings.
I don’t know of any other legal paths to ensure all citizens have access to health care except a National Health Care Plan. We can leave it up to the health care industry and end up with the same disaster we have today.
Posted by: tmferretti | November 18, 2011, 3:46 pm 3:46 pm
Posted by: tmferretti—Didn’t say it would work now, but if they had done it in the first place it would not have been an issue. The federal government does have the right to determine how the Insurance pools are managed, they do have the right to say x must be spent on patient care, they don’t have the ability to make people participate, and without the well paying for the sick it does not work. Even if the SCOTUS upholds the law, it will just mean fewer and fewer hospitals will accept those payors that participate in the program. The well will only buy Insurance when they are sick, and will pay the fine when they are well, because it will be cheaper than Insurance, because the Insurance companies will not be able to manage the risk of the sick patients. The sick patients will be paying even more than they normally would, they would have to pay the true cost of their care because the Insurance companies will not be able to cost shift to the well people. Remember the government said 90% of premiums must be used for patient care or a refund provided, if I pay $7500 a Year for Insurance and only use $200, the Insurance must refund me $7300 they will not be able to use that money to bankroll the people who spend far more than their premiums. In the end you will get the care you can afford, just like you get the food you can afford, the house you can afford, the clothes you can afford, and everything else.
Posted by: snewsom2997 | November 18, 2011, 4:33 pm 4:33 pm
Let’s get by the Newt thing. Newt, like his brother on the left, Barack, is a loser. He has a record of failure that is well documented. He can’t even manage his wives let alone a country. Move on!
Posted by: ray | November 18, 2011, 4:42 pm 4:42 pm
All industrialized, civilized countries in the world have a national health care system and no one wants to get rid of it. This is like the Post Office, the firefighters, the department of transportation, public education- sure there are some fanatics that want to end these programs (in the United States), but imagine how much worse our country would be without them (at least for the majority). The public option would have benefited the majority of those in our country, and perhaps a few CEOS of the giant health corporations would have earned a little less. Imagine all the new jobs that would have been created and curable diseases and illnesses prevented. Did you know that we have nearly the worst Infant mortality rate in the world among industrialized nations?
Posted by: Robin Nelson | November 18, 2011, 4:48 pm 4:48 pm
Posted by: Robin Nelson—Bankrolled by us paying for their national defense that is how Europe does it. When we agree to have it we will have it, until we agree we won’t. If Europe has to pay just 1/2 the percentage of GDP we do, they could not afford there entitlement programs in the first place. By the US providing defense for Europe for so long we subsidized their entitlement programs, when Europe decides to subsidize our defense then maybe we will get it.
Posted by: snewsom2997 | November 18, 2011, 5:29 pm 5:29 pm
Jon Karl, GREAT in-depth reporting on Candidate Gingrich. Now make sure you do equally deep reporting on Candidate Obama, including all of the following.
Solyndra, Beacon Power, the much-vaunted stimulus package that was supposed to keep unemployment from rising above 8 percent–but didn’t, the screwing of the Chrysler bondholders, Obamacare and CLASS, the NLRB and Boeing, failure to throw the book at the New Black Panther Party for Election Day misconduct, Operation Fast and Furious, the idiocy of attempting to try Khalid Sheikh Mohamed in federal court, nonsensical promises about Guantanamo, the infamous Apologizing for America tours…and on and on and on.
Obama is in full campaign mode, so make sure you cover the Democratic candidate as well as you do the Republicans.
Fair’s fair, right?
Posted by: Jack Davis | November 18, 2011, 7:56 pm 7:56 pm
snewsom2997 | November 18, 2011, 5:29 pm…virtually all Europeans were grateful for the US world leadership model that worked well during two generations in the Cold War – and no doubt there was extra money left for their social programs. I think we have to challenge the assumption that any of this still applies much. It’s not defense or social programs. It’s governmental priorities that are more or less vaguely linked to what citizens want. Who exactly are we fighting all the time as we ‘defense’-outspend the rest of the world combined? That’s the main deficit factor. The US is at this point a malfunctioning, militaristic, corporation-corrupted failing empire that has truly lost its way. It’s not pretty. I and many other Americans are ashamed about how we’ve been propagandized by mainly Fox-type code red drivel, aimed at keeping paranoia and military spending high and erasing independent thought, into a national bowl of Jello. Mainly a Democrat voter, I must say Ron Paul is on target in this policy area.
Posted by: libertyjustice33 | November 18, 2011, 8:12 pm 8:12 pm
newt Grinch has been selling his fat ugly butt since he left the Congress amid an ethics scandal and has been in nthe business of influence peddling in the scummiest form since. He is a hypocrite and it shows what kind of party the Republicans are that he should be among the front runners when an honest broker like Dr. Ron Paul has basically been blackballed by the party as well as the media. By the time the primaries finally arrive, there won’t be anyone but Michelle Bachman and Ron Paul to vote for. Ron Paul is the real deal but he doesn’t have the right hair or good looks to get a shot. He is the only candidate in either party that knows what the hell he is talking about and isn’t for sale to the highest bidder. I hope he wins by attrition.
Posted by: marty | November 18, 2011, 10:12 pm 10:12 pm
Seriously, folks. Newt is as much a political insider as you can get, despite his lies to the contrary, and a corrupt one at that. Jack Abramoff, who should know, called him one of the most corrupt politicians in D. C. Avoid him at all costs. He’s only in it for him, and certainly not for you! You’ll be sorry.
Posted by: Dr. bubba | November 18, 2011, 10:27 pm 10:27 pm
So why is this news? Obama just gave $500M to a failed company and even told them to hold off firing employees until after the 2010 elections! He tells us that he’s against drilling in the Gulf then turns around and awards a drilling contract to some Brazilian bunch that happens to be part-owned by his benefactor, George Soros. Not sure what the point is here.
Posted by: Bill | November 19, 2011, 12:27 am 12:27 am
Right on Ray. Newt cannot beat obama even though he is smarter. Both are losers.
Posted by: jonnie36 | November 19, 2011, 6:56 am 6:56 am
Obama just gave $500M to a failed company and even told them to hold off firing employees until after the 2010 elections! He tells us that he’s against drilling in the Gulf then turns around and awards a drilling contract to some Brazilian bunch that happens to be part-owned by his benefactor, George Soros. Posted by: Bill | November 19, 2011, 12:27 am.
This story is about Newt, why bring Obama into it? You obviously listen to the racist pig Rush Limbaugh, as his talking points are your talking points, all accusation and no proof. Obama didn’t ‘give $500 million to a failed company’. Geez, you people spin so hard it’s pathetic!!! The drilling contracts you are lying about aren’t for the Gulf – and they aren’t contracts, you moron. The US LOANED money (that will be paid back WITH INTEREST) to the state-run Brazilian oil company, to explore for oil off THEIR shore, not ours. We will MAKE money off that deal. Isn’t that a good thing? Making money? Or is it only good if it’s done by a Republican? You hypocrites on the Right slay me……….
Posted by: Searambler | November 19, 2011, 8:45 am 8:45 am
All of this tripe about Newt is moot. He will never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever be elected as our president. He’s an arse, very unlikeable, very slimy, definitely dirty, and as hypocritical as they come. Evangelicals hate him, and without their support he has no chance. Besides, he doesn’t really want to be president, he makes way too much money just RUNNING for the office. Like he’s done a couple times in the past. Conservative political donations have made Newt a multi-millionaire. He would never take the pay cut. Just like Caribou Barbie…………….
Posted by: Searambler | November 19, 2011, 8:50 am 8:50 am
This is not news, everyone knew Newt was bought and paid for by the health insurance industry since he was first elected to Congress. He fought President Clinton’s health care plan from the beginning.
The real news is who’s paying for the hotel rooms, buses, meeting centers for the tea party. I’ll think you’ll find it’s the same people paying Newt.
Posted by: tmferretti | November 19, 2011, 12:27 pm 12:27 pm
One of the funniest things about Newt is, he is the quintessential Washington insider. He epitomizes the entrenched political operative in DC. He is literally the face of all that is wrong with DC and politics today. He spent 20 years as a politician there, resigned in disgrace, and has since spent the ensuing 13 years as a professional lobbyist. And THIS is the flavor-of-the-month for the moronic TeaBaggers on the Right. I swear, you cannot make this stuff up……………..
Posted by: Searambler | November 19, 2011, 12:58 pm 12:58 pm
how ablut Newt for president andJack ABRAMHOFF FOR VP.
Posted by: bobbyncorpus | November 21, 2011, 2:05 pm 2:05 pm