Robert Schmad, Washington Examiner
Advocacy organizations run by major political donors were given an inside and publicly undisclosed role in shaping healthcare policy under former President Joe Biden, previously unreported government records show.
Emails obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the Public Health Reform Alliance and shared exclusively with the Washington Examiner show that top Biden administration officials turned to Arnold Ventures and the Commonwealth Fund to advise them on health policy and provided them with access to power brokers at private dinners and happy hours. A Washington Examiner review of campaign finance records found that the leadership of both philanthropies has collectively donated millions of dollars to Democratic political efforts over the years, in some cases to Biden.
“Federal agencies are supposed to be independent of everyone and everything but the president and the law,” PHRA Director Martin Hoyt told the Washington Examiner. “Ethical rules and statutes demand that outsiders — in this case, almost insiders, well-connected with back-channel access and ideologically simpatico — don’t have more say than taxpayers in federal government policy. That doesn’t seem to have made a difference to the Biden administration. I hope the new administration understands that some of these Biden appointees have burrowed into the career ranks.”
Arnold Ventures and the Commonwealth Fund’s access went straight to the top in the Biden administration’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, as then-CMS Director Meena Seshamani made herself available to both groups.
In a Jan. 13, 2022, email, for instance, Seshamani referenced the “continued collaboration” between CMS and the Commonwealth Fund. One day later, Seshamani personally approached the healthcare team at Arnold Ventures via email, asking for their input on Medicare Advantage risk adjustment, a key policy change. A Commonwealth Fund staffer, similarly, discussed the “ongoing collaboration” between the philanthropy and agency in an April 2022 message.
Leaders at the duo of philanthropic organizations are politically well-connected, particularly to the institutional Left.
Former healthcare executive Lois Quam, who sits on the Commonwealth Fund’s board of directors, has donated roughly $270,000 to Democratic political committees since 2016, including $5,600 to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, campaign finance records show. Contributions aside, Quam is embedded in the Democratic establishment through personal relationships, having served as a special adviser in the State Department during the Obama administration and working under then-first lady Hillary Clinton in the early ’90s.