Two Peas In a Pod: Romney’s Transition Leader Is A Smart, Serious Ex-Governor
Evan McMorris-Santoro June 4, 2012, 5:52 PM 2576
By most accounts, Mike Leavitt, the former Utah governor and Bush administration official tapped by Mitt Romney to run his transition team .. http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=F2246E8D-209E-498C-BE5C-80E66F7C4DAD .. if he is elected president is the kind of unflappable, low-profile smart guy politicians dream of surrounding themselves with. And though Leavitt is a cool head, his political past includes a few of the awkward gaffes that have sometimes veered Romney himself off course.
In Leavitt, Romney has tapped a kindred spirit: a smart, serious, ex-governor who has tripped himself up on occasion.
But gaffes have by no means been the hallmark of Leavitt’s political career. In 2003, when President George W. Bush tapped Leavitt to take over the EPA after Christine Todd Whitman’s tumultuous stint, the Washington Post reported he was chosen specifically for his ability to maintain calm waters.
“One senior Republican official called Leavitt a ‘bureaucrat’s bureaucrat,’ who would keep the EPA out of the headlines,” according to the Post. A year later, Bush again enlisted Leavitt to be a quiet, competent one-man cleanup crew after a string of bad headlines. Embarrassed by the fallout created by nomination NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik to head the Department Of Homeland Security, .. http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/bernard_kerik/ .. the president again turned to Leavitt, nominating him .. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60856-2004Dec13.html .. to lead the Department of Heath and Human Services amid public outcry that Bush’s nominee-selection process was broken. Descriptions of Levitt at that time included “loyalist,” “extraordinarily thoughtful” and, once again, quiet.
“He does not have an incendiary personality,” former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot (R), Bush’s 2004 campaign chair, told the Washington Post upon Leavitt’s selection to lead HHS.
Leavitt’s ability to be noncontroversial appears central to Romney’s decision to place him in his inner circle. Levitt has been “a calming influence at critical times” .. http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=F2246E8D-209E-498C-BE5C-80E66F7C4DAD .. to Romney, according to Politico. The Romneys trust him in part because he’s “100 percent in it for Mitt, no secret agenda for himself,” someone in the Romney camp told Politico.
Leavitt knows what this is like. During his 10-year gubernatorial tenure in Utah, Leavitt cruised to reelection .. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/482522/JIM-WHO-BRADLEY-TRAILING-LEAVITT.html .. and enjoyed wide public support. But he infamously stuck his foot in it when he took what appeared to be a soft line on polygamy. Navigating the issue of polygamy isn’t necessary for most governors, but it is a political reality for Utah politicians, and Leavitt illustrated exactly how to get it wrong. In a July 1998 press conference, Leavitt said people who practice polygamy (outlawed by Utah’s state Constitution) were “mostly good people.” The line predictably drew national attention, even as he tried to staunch the backlash by backing off the statements. He publicly expressed frustration that the story had derailed his legislative priorities.
“After several minutes of questions on the polygamy subject, Leavitt shook his head a little and seemed irritated,” the Deseret News reported. .. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/648875/Leavitt-tired-of-polygamy-uproar.html?pg=1 .. “‘There are a number of important things going on in this state,” he said, ‘like freeways, education’ and other items.”
Romney expressed similar frustration when the media fixated on his own slip-ups and when his opponents’ antics steered the primary campaign away from economic issues, where Romney is most comfortable.
Levitt’s calm demeanor won’t help with one campaign problem, though. Romney’s camp has been forced to soothe fears among conservatives terrified that the moderate Leavitt’s proximity to Romney signals the former Massachusetts governor won’t dismantle .. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/06/conservatives-attack-mitt-romney-michael-leavitt-transition-team-obamacare-exchanges.php .. Obama’s health care law as he’s promised. To those already worried that Romney’s record as the only other politician to sign a health care reform package like Obama’s into law makes him an unconvincing advocate for the national law’s destruction, Leavitt’s spot in the campaign has done little to soothe their fears.
Romney and Leavitt both know what it’s like to be the smart guy in the room who nonetheless stumbles occasionally. Now it looks like the team of quiet men is going through one of the loud fights they both try to shy away from — this time, together.
Medical Debt Collector to Settle Suit for $2.5 Million
Lori Swanson, the Minnesota attorney general. Jim Mone/Associated Press
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG Published: July 30, 2012
Accretive Health [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/accretive-health-inc/index.html ], one of the nation’s largest collectors of medical debt, has agreed to pay $2.5 million to the Minnesota state attorney general’s office to settle accusations that it violated a federal law requiring hospitals to provide emergency care, even if patients cannot afford to pay.
The company has not admitted wrongdoing.
As part of Monday’s settlement, Accretive Health is also barred from contracting with hospitals within the state for at least two years, effectively ending its business at three Minnesota hospitals. For four years after that, the company will have to obtain permission from the attorney general [ http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/technology/20120730-swanson.pdf ] before resuming business in the state.
Carol Wall, a 53-year-old Minnesota resident, said “a woman with a computer cart” told her she owed $300 as she was “vaginally hemorrhaging large amounts of blood” at an Accretive-affiliated emergency room in January, according to court records.
Another patient, Terry Mackel, 50, said he was asked to pay $363.55 at another Accretive-affiliated emergency room in Minnesota as he waited “alone, groggy and hooked up to an IV” waiting to see an emergency room doctor, according to court documents. Fearing that it was the only way to see a doctor, both patients paid.
In an interview Monday, Ms. Swanson said “a hospital emergency room should be a sanctuary for the sick and wounded, not a hunting ground for collectors.” The settlement will end a civil suit against Accretive, which Ms. Swanson filed in January after a laptop with patient information was stolen, saying that the company had violated state and federal debt collection laws and patient privacy protections.
“Even though we believe the claims against us were either baseless or exaggerated, we have used this opportunity to carefully examine our own practices in order to ensure we are setting the very highest standards for our own performance and achieving the best possible outcomes for hospitals, patients and communities,” Mary Tolan, Accretive Health’s chief executive, said in a statement.
The revelations in Minnesota have reverberated across the country because they raise concerns that such aggressive tactics have become widespread at hospitals. Accretive Health contracts with some of the largest hospital systems in the country to help them recoup money on unpaid bills that have piled up during the financial crisis and the economic downturn.
Regulators in Illinois, where Accretive is based, have been watching the developments closely, according to Sue Hofer, a spokeswoman with the state Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.
Hospitals have long hired outside collection agencies to pursue patients after they have received care. But mounting financial pressures have resulted in hospitals letting collection firms in the front door, turning over the management of their staffing, like patient registration and scheduling, along with their collection activities, according to Ms. Swanson.
Concerns are escalating that such cozy relationships will threaten patient privacy and care, according to consumer advocates.
Still, hospitals say that they are in a tough position. The more than 5,000 community hospitals in the United States provided $39.3 billion in uncompensated care — made up of unpaid patient debts or charity care — in 2010, up 16 percent from 2007, the American Hospital Association, a trade group, said.
Accretive Health e-mails and internal training manuals, which came to light through the investigation, revealed that some Accretive employees were told to hound patients to pay outstanding bills and sometimes discouraged them from receiving care.
The company fostered a pressurized collection environment, according to interviews with current and former employees. Those employees who fell behind collection quotas were threatened with termination.
“We’ve started firing people that aren’t getting with the program,” a member of Accretive’s staff wrote in an e-mail to his bosses in September 2010.
In some instances, the employees had access to a trove of confidential patient records, which they might have used while persuading patients to pay their overdue bills, a potential violation of federal privacy laws. Under the terms of the settlement, Accretive Health will be required to turn over all the data of Minnesota patients that it has collected.
Shares of Accretive Health closed Monday before the settlement was announced at $10.01, down 4 percent. Since Ms. Swanson released the internal documents in April, shares of Accretive have plummeted by 46 percent. Investors late Monday afternoon seemed happy to see the suit and investigation resolved, sending the shares up 23 percent in after-hours trading.
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