If you can manage to tear your attention away from Benghazi, IRS, etc., etc., I have a piece over on the home paget looking at another potential scandal brewing in the Obama administration: Kathleen Sebelius has been asking health-industry companies to donate to groups promoting Obamacare. Senator Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) is comparing her actions to Oliver North’s in the Iran-Contra debacle.
One thing I should add: HHS spokesperson Jason Young defended Sebelius’s actions to me by saying that other administrations had done the same. But Bush administration official Tevi Troy takes issue with Young’s claim that Medicare Part D led to such a scheme, e-mailing me that “In the Bush administration, we did not solicit outside funds for Part D implementation. There was funding in the legislation to organize an effort to enroll seniors. Oglivie got the contract and did that work. In addition, some independent groups worked on similar efforts, without HHS soliciting funds for those efforts. What Secretary Sebelius is doing is soliciting funds that Congress has not given HHS to work on the effort.”