Still more evidence that Wellpoint wrote the Baucus plan: the insurance company’s lobbying efforts in DC are headed up by Senator Mike Enzi’s former chief health adviser at Senate HELP, Stephen Northrup. Enzi is a member of Baucus’s so-called “Gang of Six” shaping the bipartisan compromise bill.

In fact, key provisions in the Baucus plan apparently draw on industry-inspired legislation first introduced by Enzi in 2006, while Northrup was still his chief health aide.

Consumer Watchdog first called attention to the similarities, particularly with respect to a part of the plan that would help insurance companies avoid state regulation:

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This morning Democracy Now! interviewed Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is vowing to withhold support from any health care reform bill lacking a strong public option. Amy Goodman asked Grijalva about the significance of the revolving spinning door between the industry and Senator Baucus’ staff, citing research first published on Eyes on the Ties:

AMY GOODMAN: Congress member Grijalva, I also want to ask you about Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus and his close ties to the healthcare industry. Yesterday, the White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Baucus had distributed his healthcare plan to lobbyists on K Street prior to sharing the plan with other members of the committee.

Meanwhile, the watchdog website LittleSis.org has revealed Senator Baucus’s chief health adviser, Elizabeth Fowler, is a former executive for the insurance giant Wellpoint. Fowler has been called the “chief operating officer” of the healthcare reform process. Baucus’s previous chief health adviser, Michelle Easton, now lobbies for Wellpoint.

LittleSis.org also reports that another Senate staffer working on Baucus’s healthcare bill, Cathy Koch, is a former lobbyist for health insurance and pharmaceutical interests, including an insurance industry front group. Koch worked as the director of global government affairs at the drug company Amgen until early 2007. Before that, she worked at Ernst & Young, where she lobbied on behalf of a number of large insurance and pharmaceutical companies, including Aetna, Blue Cross, Eli Lilly and Pfizer.

What is your response, considering how central Max Baucus is to determining what Congress will come up with?

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Last week, I noted that the key Baucus healthcare staffer is a former insurance executive. Now, Liz Fowler’s stint at Wellpoint is getting some more attention, as her electronic fingerprints have been found on the Senator’s new healthcare plan. Not surprising, as she’s the top health staffer in Baucus’s office, but the symbolism is rich: it’s as if Wellpoint wrote the Baucus plan.

Some more evidence of Wellpoint’s influence: Michelle Easton, Baucus’s top health aide prior to Fowler, is currently lobbying for Wellpoint.

While Fowler was at Wellpoint, Easton was the top healthcare staffer in Baucus’s office. Now, the roles are reversed. As a principal at the healthcare lobbying firm Tarplin, Downs, and Young, Easton is also lobbying for PhRMA, Amgen, and Wyeth. Before working for Baucus, she was a top lobbyist at PhRMA.

Both Fowler and Easton leveraged their work on the Medicare reform bill of 2003 to take lucrative jobs in the healthcare industry, at Wellpoint and PhRMA, respectively. Fowler played a crucial role in forging that compromise, according to the Hill:

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Just when you thought the Baucus revolving door couldn’t spin faster: the Senate staffer responsible for devising the tax policies at the heart of the Baucus plan is a former lobbyist for health insurance and pharmaceutical interests, including an insurance industry front group.

Cathy Koch, who heads the Senate Finance committee’s tax department, was director of global government affairs at pharmaceutical company Amgen until early 2007. Before that, she worked at Ernst and Young, where she lobbied on behalf of a number of large insurance and pharmaceutical companies, including Aetna, Blue Cross, Eli Lilly, and Pfizer.

Tax incentives and calculations are central to health care reform plan that Baucus sent to members of the Gang of Six this weekend, including a penalty on health insurance companies offering expensive plans. The “Cadillac” plan tax has received significant media attention as a particularly important and controversial feature that targets insurance companies.

But was it designed by one of their own?

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Senator Max Baucus’s chief health adviser, Elizabeth Fowler, has been called the “chief operating officer” of the healthcare reform process by Politico — the staffer who sets legislative deadlines, coordinates with the White House on policy, and is understood to speak for Baucus on health policy issues. Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein has called her the most influential health staffer in the Senate.

Fowler, as it turns out, is also fresh off a lucrative stint working for the insurance industry: from 2006 to 2008, she was VP of public policy for Wellpoint, the insurance giant.

That’s right, an insurance industry hack is the quiet name directing the healthcare reform process on Capitol Hill.

It gets worse. Baucus’s chief health advisor prior to Fowler, Michelle Easton, currently lobbies for Wellpoint as a principal at Tarplin, Downs, & Young.

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In 2005, another example of questionable ties between lobbyists and government positions drifted into the fore, raising the eyebrows of some political pundits and government watchdogs: James C. Langdon Jr., Chairman of George W. Bush’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, lobbied William Wicker, a high-ranking executive at Goldman Sachs Asia, in order to secure a major lobbying contract with China National Offshore Oil Company [CNOOC] for his law firm:

Langdon met with CNOOC’s investment banking partner, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., in February, marshalling a long friendship with Beijing-based Goldman executive William Wicker to help win his law firm’s lobbying contract, Akin Gump officials confirmed. They say he recused himself in late March from further involvement in the matter, either for Akin Gump or the PFIAB. (Washington Post, 2005).

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The White House and Senate Democrats may consider splitting the health care bill into two pieces to get GOP support on at least one of them. (WSJ)

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will travel to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for the Fed’s annual meeting. (NYT)

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced $1.2 billion in grant money to help train hospitals to use electronic health records, fulfilling an early Obama campaign promise. (Reuters)

Senator Ted Kennedy sends a letter to the State Senate, asking them to quickly name his successor who can get to work in Washington. (WSJ)

A report says government jobs have grown since the recession, but big cuts may on the horizon. (NYT)

President Obama meets with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon this week, amid protests. (Reuters)

Obama pay czar Kenneth Feinberg hits a hurdle with firms assuring guaranteed bonuses, despite performance, on Wall Street. (NYT)

GM and eBay partner for an experiment to sell new cars until Sept. 8. (WSJ)

The Senate Finance Committee is now considering a proposal by John Kerry to tax higher-quality health care plans. (WSJ)

Paul Krugman endorses Ben Bernanke for a second term as Fed chairman. (Bloomberg)

***Analysts: Ben Bernanke’s profile needs some work. Help us find out more about him by doing some digging to build up his relationships.

While Goldman Sachs‘ managing partners prepare their lists for Fifth Avenue shopping sprees on bonus day, the firm’s public relations department is grappling with an image problem that has some staying power. Goldman’s record profiteering at a time of chronic unemployment and systemic crisis along with Matt Taibbi’s superb article on Goldman’s role in market manipulation and the high-profile arrest of former Goldman programmer Sergey Aleynikov, who allegedly downloaded Goldman code that can be used to manipulate markets (who knew?), have conspired to create a perfect storm of populist backlash directed at the firm.

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Three weeks ago, Matt Taibbi kicked off the latest anti-Goldman Sachs media cycle with a brilliant polemic in Rolling Stone. His opener achieved meme status long before the full article even appeared on the web:

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.

Today, the squid was at it again, albeit meekly. The Obama administration tiptoed out their most recent Goldman nominee late this afternoon — hoping, perhaps, that the Friday evening quiet would offer some cover from the next stage of the media cycle. Bob Hormats, vice chairman at Goldman Sachs international, is Obama’s pick for under secretary of state for economic, energy, and agricultural affairs.

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