Mixing policy, marketing
One of the key organizations of the Gingrich Group over the past eight years was the health-care center, an unusual hybrid that married the policy focus of a traditional think tank with Gingrich’s instincts for self-promotion and marketing.
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has acknowledged receiving personal compensation from Freddie Mac. The former House speaker left open the possibility that his consulting firm received between $1.6 million and $1.8 million. (Nov. 16)
The center attracted a long list of global health-care firms and interest groups, which paid $5,000 to $200,000 a year, based on their size, to be members. Based on archived membership lists going back to 2003, that means the center brought in as much as $6.25 million per year from higher-level members giving $50,000 or more, totaling at least $37 million since 2003.
That does not include many other sources of revenue, such as dues from smaller members and fees for polling, research and other services the center offered.
The center has listed scores of firms and industry groups as members over the years, amounting to a Who’s Who of the medical field, from GE Healthcare to the American Hospital Association to Wellpoint, the nation’s largest health insurer. The think tank also drew funding from employers with sizable health-care costs, such as Detroit’s Big Three automakers, records show.
Several firms characterized their membership as a way to share information about potential health-care reforms.
“We engage with a variety of organizations to participate in public policy discussions on issues impacting our business,” said Tony Jewell, spokesman for drugmaker AstraZeneca, which has been listed as a “founding charter member” since 2005. He said the company is reviewing its membership for next year.
Rick Tyler, a longtime Gingrich spokesman who left as part of a staff exodus from the campaign over the summer, said the think tank “was very successful financially” and played a vital role in promoting free-market solutions for the health-care system. He said Gingrich could have easily cashed in as a registered lobbyist after leaving Congress but chose to try to shape the debate over major public policies instead.
“I don’t think Newt was trying to be an influence-peddler,” Tyler said. “If he had wanted to do that, he could have done that, and he would have been rewarded handsomely for it, I’m sure.”
Although Gingrich gave up ownership of the think tank earlier this year to begin his candidacy, the group still bills him prominently as its founder and sells a long list of Gingrich-related books, videos and other products. Another Gingrich venture, a nonprofit called American Solutions for Winning the Future, closed its doors over the summer amid financial problems.
An issue on campaign trail
A financial disclosure form filed by the candidate in July said his net worth was at least $6.7 million, with income of at least $2.7 million in 2010. The form listed a “convertible promissory note” — a kind of loan that can be paid back or converted into stock — worth $5 million to $25 million from Gingrich Group to Gingrich Productions, a media company run by his wife, Callista.
Gingrich has clashed with other Republican presidential candidates over his evolving positions on health-care issues. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, whose own state health-care reform plan was a model for Obama’s national approach, attacked Gingrich at one debate: “We got the idea of an individual mandate from you!”
The Gingrich health center’s support for such a mandate was part of an “Insure All Americans” plan that appears to have disappeared from the center’s Web site Thursday.
Gingrich has characterized his previous support for insurance mandates as a response to President Bill Clinton’s more government-focused health-care proposal in the 1990s, and he has said he turned against the idea.
“I am completely opposed to the Obamacare mandate on individuals,” he says in a recent campaign video. “I fought it for 21 / 2 years at the Center for Health Transformation.”
During a recent interview in South Carolina, Gingrich said that ending his involvement in the health-care think tank and other businesses was difficult. He also said that if he fails to win the Republican nomination, he doesn’t know whether he will “do anything as big as the center” again.
“You know, I’ve made a good deal of my income off the speeches and off of being a commentator,” Gingrich said. “All of that went away. So it just got to be much more challenging.”
Staff writer Karen Tumulty contributed to this report.
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