-By Warner Todd Huston
Must be nice to be a member of the “in” crowd, the crowd of crony capitalists to whom President Obama has given so much of the taxpayer’s money. And not just money but positions of power in the government.
Take, for instance, Obama’s newest czar, Judith Faulkner, recently named Obama medical records czar. She was not only put in charge of deciding which company would be used for Obama’s official electronic medical records system, but she also just happens to have an electronic medical records company of her own. And, gosh, it seems her company is suddenly quite busy and just might be in line to become THE electronic medical records company. Imagine that.
Only a few weeks ago news of Faulkner’s elevation to Obama’s Health Information Technology Policy Committee. This committee is charged with deciding how $19 billion in Obama bucks is spent on healthcare IT systems.
It was known then that Faulkner ran a company called Epic Systems Corp., a company that specializes in electronic medical records. It was also known that Faulkner stands squarely against Obama’s idea that his IT solution has to have “interoperability,” or a way to integrate over several different platforms made by different companies.
Faulkner thinks that only her company, Epic Systems, should be the one to host all electronic medical records. Other companies need not apply.
Of course Faulkner’s company has been getting quite a lot of government contracts of late.
There’s the $14 million contract Epic got from the Coast Guard.
Or we can look at the $122 million project for the University of Virginia Medical Center.
Then there’s the prediction by industry watchers that Epic will get a fat contract from the Department of Defense.
Of course, Faulkner’s company isn’t just working on various government contracts. She also has some big union contracts, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for one… one of the biggest government employees unions.
- Kaiser Permanente (SEIU-UHW)
- Cleveland Clinic (SEIU)
- Cedars Sinai (SEIU-UHW and CIR-SEIU)
- NYU Langone Medical Center (SEIU)
- Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (SEIU)
- Harvard Community Health Plan (SEIU)
- Sutter Health (SEIU)
- Geisinger Health System (SEIU)
I suppose with her close connections to the SEIU, a big Obama supporter, it shouldn’t surprise that she is suddenly favored by Obama for appointment to one of his big “committees,” one responsible for spending big Obama bucks.
If her work for the government and her close ties to Big Labor wasn’t enough, she is also a big donor to Democrats in general and Obama in particular.
In 2008 Faulkner gave at least $110,000 including a $57,000 to the DNC and $2,300 to Barack Obama. (source Center for Responsive Politics)
After her appointment to the health records committee, Faulkner donated $85,000 through the 2010 election to Democrats. This included $50,400 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and $7,500 to the DNC. (source Center for Responsive Politics)
Faulkner has also gave at least $7,000 to Wisconsin Democrats. (Source Center for Responsive Politics)
So, Judith Faulkner is a woman that is very connected to the Democrat Party, is in deep with Big Labor, has her own electronic medical records company that she thinks should be the only such company to handle the nations records and this is the woman that Obama is asking to be impartial enough to help choose which company should get billions of tax dollars?
Instead of having the market determine which electronic medical records system will work best, Obama and his industry favorites will make the choice for us. It’s just another example of the sort of crony capitalism that Obama has become famous for.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.