Princeton Sociology Professor Paul Starr Helped Set-Up Secret Hillary Care Meetings

Tenured professor Paul Starr explains his role in Hillary Care:

But the troubles of the President's Task Force began immediately. Before making the announcement, the White House had not thought to check with legal counsel about the implications of formally designating a "task force," and soon it was facing lawsuits challenging the first lady's role and demanding that the meetings be public. Under the task force, Magaziner organized some 30 "working groups" concerned with such issues as the design of the purchasing alliances and with the analysis of the plan from different angles, including costs and ethics. (I helped set up these groups and was responsible for running a "cluster" of three of them.) The membership of the working groups quickly rose to more than 500 -- mostly federal employees, many of them added at the request of their departments, as well as some independent experts, congressional staff (Democrats only), and state health-care officials (Republican as well as Democrat). Their meetings were intense but short-lived -- they dispersed early in the spring, before the plan was written. We also conducted hundreds of meetings with representatives of different organizations that wanted to communicate their views to the White House.

This was the "secretive" process that critics of Hillary have in mind when they attack her. Compared to policy development in other administrations, it was exceptionally open and inclusive, but those very efforts to bring people in excited objections that the White House wasn't open and inclusive enough.

Paul Starr works in a department where everyone agrees the state is good.After all,wouldn't life be different for Starr and his fellow sociologists without Pell grants,federal research dollars,and student loans? We bring this up because Paul Starr sees no limit on the federal government.No word yet from Paul Starr on New York State Medicaid fraud.