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March 13, 2014 at 07:29 AM
The grim truth is that I have no special access to anything or anyone and am shy, to boot.
I have no way of knowing what really goes on at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
I feel a little bit like a high-class insider just for knowing what CCIIO is, and that some people pronounce the acronym “Sih-Sigh-O.”
So, on the one hand, I have no idea what it’s really like to work for Gary Cohen, the CCIIO director who is leaving his post voluntarily March 31, as his boss announced in an email to CMS employees.
I don’t know what that boss, Marilyn Tavenner, or Kathleen Sebelius, is really like in private, either.
But, on the other hand, just going by how they acted during congressional hearings: I think their testimonies support the idea that free markets are a great promoter of honesty.
Maybe, in the real, private world, Cohen, Tavenner and Sebelius are all extremely nice, honest, effective people.
During the hearings, it seemed as if they embodied the concept that closeness to the customer — to the nervous, grouchy human being who causes Demand to hesitantly hand money to Supply — breeds openness.
Sebelius has always seemed to be speaking with the implicit message, You know I can’t go off my talking points with you. What’s your problem?
Tavenner seemed to recite the talking points as if she really believed them herself.
