And so it begins. Just like they’ve done with every GOP frontrunner, the mainstream media is parading every skeleton (real or fictitious) in the GOP closet. Earlier this week it was revealed that Gingrich received in excess of a million dollars from Freddie Mac, and now it seems as though he may have received additional funding from the healthcare industry by way of his think tank, The Center for Health Transformation. The Washington Post reports:
A think tank founded by GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich collected at least $37 million over the past eight years from major health-care companies and industry groups, offering special access to the former House speaker and other perks, according to records and interviews.
The Center for Health Transformation, which opened in 2003, brought in dues of as much as $200,000 per year from insurers and other health-care firms, offering some of them “access to Newt Gingrich” and “direct Newt interaction,” according to promotional materials. The biggest funders, including firms such as AstraZeneca, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Novo Nordisk, were also eligible to receive discounts on “products and workshops” from other Gingrich groups.
The health center advocated, among other things, requiring that “anyone who earns more than $50,000 a year must purchase health insurance or post a bond,” a type of insurance mandate that has since become anathema to conservatives.
The group also pushed proposals to build centralized electronic medical records and use such data to research treatment effectiveness, both central features of President Obama’s health-care reforms.
Gingrich, who has been under fire recently for his lucrative consulting business, left the health-care think tank earlier this year to run for president. But his time there exemplifies the former Georgia congressman’s post-legislative career as a well-paid consultant and policy guru, a role that earned him and his companies tens of millions of dollars over the past decade.
His experience at the think tank also illustrates Gingrich’s past flirtations with moderate policies — on health care, the environment and other hot-button issues — that have become the subject of controversy and criticism in the presidential race.
The Gingrich campaign referred questions about the center to the think tank. Susan Meyers, a center spokeswoman, declined to comment on the think tank’s income or staffing levels because it is a private-sector organization. She said that neither the center nor Gingrich has engaged in formal lobbying.
Meyers called Gingrich “a health-care visionary” who was advocating far-reaching reforms “before many of these concepts in health care became mainstream.” She said the think tank’s members don’t always agree on specific issues but are working “toward a common vision of saving lives and money.”
Gingrich has been criticized in recent days after Bloomberg News reported that he earned as much as $1.8 million in consulting fees from Freddie Mac, a quasi-public corporation that many conservatives blame for the housing crisis. After first suggesting he was hired for a short time as a “historian,” Gingrich has since acknowledged acting as a consultant for the mortgage giant “over a long period of time.”
“I was approached to offer strategic advice; I was glad to offer strategic advice,” Gingrich told reporters in Iowa this week. “We did it for a number of companies, and Gingrich Group was very successful.”
I’m curious to see how the base will respond not only to the media’s ‘vetting’ of Gingrich, but to the fact that he supported(s) an individual health care mandate (soon to receive the scrutiny of the Supreme Court). And the GOP primary drama continues…