Few lawyers have a better command of the 2,700-page health care legislation than Elizabeth Fowler. That’s because she wrote much of it.
When she served as chief counsel on health for the Senate Finance Committee, Fowler was called the bill’s “chief operating officer,” acting as point person, policy guru and political peacemaker. In a 2009 floor speech, her boss, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), said that she penned the white paper “which became the basis, the foundation, the blueprint from which almost all health care measures in all bills on both sides of the aisle came. She is an amazing person.”
