Julio Rivera: "RINOCare" Studies were Funded by Enron Beneficiaries

If you can’t trust the messenger, how can you trust the message? Maybe the more relevant way of asking it in consideration of the depths of immorality in the DC swamp community is, “If an enabler of the biggest financial fraud in American history is funding a study, shouldn’t we conduct a deeper examination into its intent?

Almost 3 years into the Trump presidency, the healthcare issue, one that had been perpetually a rallying cry for Republicans looking to save Americans from Barack Obama and the Democrat’s party-line installed version of socialized medicine over several election cycles, has mostly gone unaddressed in any substantial way.

The issue has heated up recently, behind a current piece of health care legislation called The Lower Health Care Costs Act (LHCC). The bill’s stated intention is to address what Democrats, RINOs and those opposed to fair compensation for Doctors and free market principles in general, refer to as “surprise” medical billing.

The “surprise” occurs when sometimes in the course of receiving emergency treatment, patients are rushed to hospitals outside of their health insurance network. As a result of this happening, insurance companies sometimes refuse to cover the full cost of the visit. The insured usually only learn that the services were outside the scope of their coverage after the hospital mails them a bill for what may amount to tens of thousands dollars in legitimately provided and necessary medical treatment.

One of the driving forces behind the recent support that this bill has received was a study conducted by the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy. The study, titled State Approaches to Mitigating Surprise Out-of-Network Billing, supposedly “aims to inform the national health care debate with rigorous, evidence-based analysis leading to practical recommendations using the collaborative strengths of USC and Brookings.”

If you actually read the study, you see that one of its lead authors is none other than a noted Obamacare apologist named Loren Adler. Adler, a millennial, once penned a ridiculously tone deaf column titled, “Obamacare Premiums Are Lower Than You Think,” years after Americans of his generation were proven to be the big losers in a scandal so “Yuge,” you just had to “read it, to find out what was in it.”

The first few words of the study also disclose the fact that it was funded through a grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. According to another author of the study,  Director Of Brookings’ Health Policy Initiative Paul Ginsberg, “A grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation made last year has enabled us to substantially expand our activities on surprise billing and has led directly to this conference and the paper on policy options for states that was released in February around the original meeting dates. We're grateful for their support.”

Another question legislators and American health care insurance customers should be asking is, “Who exactly is behind the Laura and John Arnold Foundation?”

The driving force behind the foundation is none other than the infamous former “Star” of the trading desk at infamous natural gas trading company Enron. Yes, that Enron. According to a New York Times article from 2002, “Even as the Enron Corporation was collapsing around him last year, John D. Arnold, the 27-year-old star of the company's energy trading desk, had the kind of year that traders dare only dream about.”

John Arnold was profiting handsomely, even as Enron’s shareholders lost more than $74 Billion leading up to its bankruptcy, with employees also losing billions in pension benefits. Even more despicably, days before Enron officially filed for bankruptcy, John Arnold was paid a bonus of $8 Million, which was the largest bonus paid by the company, which he presumably used to start the hedge fund Centaurus, which included a small group of former Enron traders and worked out of a single large room.

In the time since, Arnold has been throwing money into far-left causes regularly, including the murder factory known as Planned Parenthood and the so-called Center for Reproductive Rights. He also spent millions attacking the 2016 opponent of NJ Senator Bob Menendez, Bob Hugin. Menendez was of course “severely admonished” for accepting gifts from a wealthy doctor friend, while using his influence as a senator to further the doctor’s financial interests.

John Arnold looks to be another example of the wealthy, privileged and morally askew, attempting to move the needle on legislation that will ultimately only hurt both patients and doctors. He is, a case study on how think tanks, universities and political hacks like Loren Adler can attempt to legitimize any position, so long as the price is right.