2020 presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg released a list of his clients at McKinsey & Company on Tuesday night after critics pushed him for transparency on his work at the international consulting firm.
According to the list, which was posted on Medium, Buttigieg helped oversee “overhead expenditures” at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan in 2007.
“Now, voters can see for themselves that my work amounted to mostly research and analysis,” the South Bend, Indiana mayor wrote in the post. “They can also see that I value both transparency and keeping my word.”
Two years after Buttigieg completed his work as cost assessment consultant at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, the company announced it was laying off 1,000 employees and raising premiums in 2009.
When MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow asked Buttigieg on Tuesday whether his work at McKinsey had led to the layoffs, the candidate responded, “I doubt it.”
“I don’t know what happened in the time after I left,” he said.
Buttigieg’s involvement with the health care firm is particularly notable given his attacks against the progressive Medicare for All plans touted by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Buttigieg opposes the elimination of private insurance, as Warren and Sanders have proposed.
The South Bend mayor has faced growing scrutiny over his work at the consulting firm, particularly after a ProPublica investigation revealed last week that McKinsey had worked with ICE to devise certain cost-cutting measures, such as cutting back on food and medical care for migrants in detention centers.
I don’t see anything nefarious here. It means that Buttigeig is decently-informed on the issue, even if perhaps somewhat out of date and from a particular point of view. (And in corporate terms a couple years can be a long time, especially if it includes a major policy transition.)
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I’d be more likely to credit this perspective if a) Buttigieg hadn’t stalled and obfuscated on this and similar points for so long, and b) I didn’t know how long it often takes giant organizations like BCBS to actually implement decisions based on a consultant’s report. A couple of years is absolutely not outside the realm of possibility here.
Wow we are digging the bottom of the barrel to find something on this guy.
Have you guys seen the several examples of him being very rude and dismissive to people who want to know about his private fundraisers?
He acts more like a CEO than someone trying to win a vote.