
MASSDEVICE ON CALL — The GOP’s top healthcare policy workers are heading to greener pastures, and it may be due to frustration with the party’s inability to gain much traction in healthcare reform.
"There is a general level of frustration that everybody realizes we have these problems on the immediate horizon that need to be addressed – and there doesn’t seem to be the universal appetite to deal with these things," former House Ways & Means Health Subcommittee staff director Dan Elling, who stepped down from his post last week, told Politico.
Capitol Hill healthcare committees have lost at least 6 senior members since the election, many of whom accepted positions in lobbying and consulting groups.
"Honestly, I think there’s been so much brain drain over the past six months of really excellent people leaving the Hill because they’re so frustrated and they’re tired of beating their heads against the wall," an unnamed former senior worker told the news wire.
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