Murray Waas
Encyclopedia
Murray S. Waas is an American
freelance investigative journalist
known most recently for his coverage of the White House
planning for the 2003 invasion of Iraq
and ensuing controversies and American political scandals such as the Plame affair
(also known as the "CIA leak grand jury investigation
", the "CIA leak scandal", and "Plamegate"). His articles about such matters have appeared in National Journal
, where he has worked as a staff correspondent and contributing editor, The Atlantic, and, earlier the American Prospect
. Waas also comments on contemporary American political controversies in his personal blog
s Whatever Already! and at The Huffington Post
. An "instant book", the United States v. I. Lewis Libby
which he edited, with research assistance by Jeff Lomonaco, was published by Union Square Press (an imprint of Sterling Publishing
) in June 2007.
and originally hoped to have a career in law and city politics ("To be the district attorney and mayor of the City of Philadelphia"), but he dropped out of George Washington University
before graduating.
In 1987, when Waas was only twenty-six years old, he learned that he had a life-threatening "advanced form" of cancer. On June 26, 2006, Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz disclosed that Waas had been told that he had an "incurable Stage C" cancer and faced a "terminal diagnosis."
Subsequently, Waas successfully sued the George Washington University
Medical Center, which had negligently "failed to diagnose his cancer, winning a $650,000 judgment ... in a 1992 verdict ... upheld by the D.C. Court of Appeals
." Although, according to a pathologist hired by Waas to testify in the case, "90% of [such] patients die within two years," Waas survived and was later declared "cancer-free." His recovery and survival were later described as a "miracle" by the medical team treating him."
Although he initially shied away from writing about health care because of his history as a cancer survivor, in 2009 and 2010, Waas weighed in with a series of articles for Reuters, detailing how many of the nation's largest heatlh insurance companies, improperly, and even illegally, canceled the policies of tens of thousands of customers shortly after they were diagnosed with HIV, cancer, and other life threatening but costly diseases." One story disclosed that the health insurer, WellPoint, using a computer algorithm, identified women recently diagnosed with breast cancer and then singled them out for cancelation of their policies." The story not only caused considerable public outrage, but led Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius
, and President Barack Obama, to call on WellPoint to end the practice.
Pressured by the Obama administration, WellPoint and the nation's other largest health insurers agreed to immediately end the practice. Waas was credited with saving the lives of countless other cancer patients like himself, and making sure that thousands of other people did not have their insurance unfairly canceled. He won the Barlett & Steele Award for Business Investigative Reporting from the Walter Cronkite School of Arizona State University as well as other honors for the stories.
, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe
, The Washington Post
, Harper's, The Nation
, and The Village Voice
.
In his twenties he was a staff writer and investigative correspondent for the Village Voice.
According to his appreciation of Anderson that Waas published in the Village Voice, after the columnist's death at the age of 83:
Ralph Nurnberger, a former staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and professor at Georgetown University
, later concluded in a study for the African Studies Review that the economic sanctions imposed against Amin by the U.S. led to Amin's downfall.Nurnberger wrote that the congressional initiative to impose the sanctions had garnered little attention or support until "Jack Anderson assigned one of his reporters, Murray Waas to follow the issue" and write regularly about it. At the time, Anderson's columns were published in more than 1,000 newspapers, which in turn had 40 million readers. Waas was eighteen and nineteen years old at the time he wrote the columns.
Prior to his overthrow from power, Amin had been alleged to have engaged in genocide and killed between 150,000 and 300,000 of his own citizens. The late Sen. Frank Church
(D-Id.), a chairman of the Senate Foreign Committee, later said the congressionally imposed boycott "contributed to the fall of Idi Amin." Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Or.), said that the sanctions caused the conditions that "would come to break Amin's seemingly invincible survivability."
During the Reagan administration, Waas was among a small group of reporters involved in breaking the story of the Iran-Contra affair
. Later, he also reported on Whitewater
and the Clinton impeachment for Salon.com
.
Waas won an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship in 1992 to research and write about the rights of the institutionalized and incarcerated in the U.S. For his fellowship, he investigated substandard conditions and questionable deaths at institutions for the mentally retarded, mental hospitals, nursing homes, juvenile detention centers, and jails and prisons.
As part of his work for the Alicia Patterson Foundation, Waas published a 7,912 word article in the Los Angeles Times on April 3, 1994 detailing how mentally retarded children institutionalized by the District of Columbia government had died because of abuse and neglect. The story led to renewed scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Justice of the city's treatment of its mentally retarded wards and spurred on the settlement of a civil suit brought against the city government by the parents of children who had died due to abuse or neglect.
Following the presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush, in 1993, while a reporter for the The Los Angeles Times, Waas, along with his Los Angeles Times colleague Douglas Frantz, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
in the category of national reporting for his stories detailing that administration's prewar foreign policy towards the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein
. That same year, Waas was also a recipient of the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, awarded by the Joan Shorenstein Barone Center on The Press, of the John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University
, for "a series that detailed United States policy toward Iraq
before the Persian Gulf war
.
More recently, he has worked as a national correspondent and contributing editor of National Journal.
Summarizing the stories that Waas wrote for National Journal
during 2005 and 2006 about the second Bush administration's policies that led up to war with Iraq, Washington Post online White House columnist Dan Froomkin, wrote on March 31, 2006:
While writing about the second Bush administration's policies that led up to war with Iraq, Waas simultaneously reported about the investigation of CIA leak prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation as to who leaked covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to the press-- illustrating in his reporting how the two stories were inexorably linked in that the effort to damage Plame was part of a broader Bush White House effort to discredit those who were alleging that it had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war.
Plame's identity as a covert CIA agent was leaked to the media by senior Bush White House officials to discredit and retaliate against her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had alleged the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Saddam Hussein
. I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney
, was later convicted on federal charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in an attempt to conceal his own role and that of others in the Bush White House in outing Plame, although President Bush would later commute Libby's thirty-month prison sentence. Waas not only wrote the first story disclosing that Libby had leaked Plame's identity to New York Times reporter Judith Miller
, but the same story also paved the way for Miller, then in jail for more than a hundred days, to be released and testify against Libby.
On Aug. 6, 2005, Waas disclosed for the first time that it was Libby who had leaked Plame's name to Miller, writing: "I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has told federal investigators that he met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003, and discussed CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to legal sources familiar with Libby's account.
That same story also disclosed that Libby was encouraging Miller to stay in jail and not reveal that Libby was her source. A short time later, citing the Waas story, prosecutor Fitzgerald wrote Libby's attorney, alleging that "Libby had simply decided that encouraging Ms. Miller to testify was not in his best interest" and that Libby discouraging Miller to testify might be an illegal effort to obstruct his investigation. Libby then wrote and called Miller saying that it was alright for her to testify. After spending more than a hundred days in jail, Miller was released, and provided testimony and evidence to prosecutors against Libby, that led to Libby's indictment, and subsequent conviction , on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz
wrote on April 17, 2006 that Waas' account "set in motion the waiver springing Miller from jail on contempt charges."
Several of Waas's later published accounts of that aspect of the Plame affair
inform his Union Square Press book on the Libby trial
published in June 2007, which he discusses in some detail in his interview with Amy Goodman
on Democracy Now!
.
In a May 15, 2006 interview with Elizabeth Halloran, of U.S. News and World Report, when she asked whether he was "working on stories other than those involving the Fitzgerald
investigation
," Waas indicated that he has "been working on a long, explanatory piece about healthcare issues, the cervical cancer vaccine." Among the questions that he raised with Halloran are: "Why isn't that vaccine going to get to the people it should get to? Is it going to be locked away?"
Asked during the same interview by Halloran why Waas had chosen not only not to appear on cable television shows, but had also been known to decline to go on such shows as Nightline and Meet the Press, he responded: "There's not much of it that really enlightens us. There are journalists who don't do journalism anymore. They go on television; they're blogging; they're giving speeches; they're going to parties. And then at the end of the week they've had four or five hours devoted to journalism."
Waas also told Halloran:
Waas similarly told Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz
, who had nicknamed Waas, "The Lone Ranger": "If my journalism has had impact, it has been because I have spent more time in county courthouses than greenrooms," Claude Lewis, a member of the Editorial Board of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote in a profile of the journalist that his low key approach had proved to be effective: "His quiet and sometimes unorthodox manner is disarming. He often lulls his subjects into thinking he isn't very sharp. But he is an intelligent and intense digger, who checks and double-checks his facts."
's Union Square Press imprint on June 5, 2007.
The bulk of the book was an edited version of the trial transcript of the federal criminal trial of I. Lewis Libby, carefully culled from its original size of nearly a million words. The book also included an original essay written by Waas, entitled "The Last Compartment", which contained new information and reporting.
The book's editor and publisher told USA Today that the book was an attempt to be "like the published reports from the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group" in both thoroughness and accuracy, providing additional context to the original documentary record, and adding new reporting and information.
Reviewing the book in the Columbia Journalism Review, James Boylan, a contributing editor of the magazine, wrote for its November/December 2007 issue:
, then a staff writer for The Los Angeles Times who won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism
the previous year, assessed the reporting by his colleagues Murray Waas and Douglas Frantz on the first Bush administration's prewar policy towards Iraq leading up to the first Gulf War
, which included "more than 100 stories, totaling more than 90,000 words": "The Times
's stories—many based on previously secret papers prepared by the Bush administration—alleged that the Bush administration tried to cover up what it had done by altering documents it supplied to Congress and by attempting to obstruct official investigations of aid to Iraq," quoting the observation of Leonard Downie, executive editor of The Washington Post
, that his own newspaper was "slow in getting up to speed on that story, in part because it's the kind of story involving careful work with documents... Once you're behind, it takes a while to catch up." Downie credits the Los Angeles Times with "pav[ing] the way," saying that that is "why we began pursuing it after really not noticing it from the outset."
In June 1998, J.D. Lasica
published "The Web: A New Channel for Investigative Journalism", a "sidebar" to his article entitled "Salon: The Best Pure-Play Web Publication?", published in American Journalism Review
, assessing reporting on the Impeachment of Bill Clinton
in Salon.com by Waas and his colleagues, observing that "Salon's coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky matter
—its first sustained foray into classic investigative journalism—has served as a counterweight to the mainstream media
's wolfpack mindset" and citing the view of Andrew Ross (then-managing editor of Salon); according to Lasica, "Salon's investigative journalism ... has raised old media's hackles because, Ross says, it was done the old-fashioned way: shoe leather, cultivating sources, working the phones—no new-media tricks here." Indeed, Lasica continues the 1998 account, by pointing out that Waas, who has written a dozen stories for Salon, is [at that time] a bit of a technophobe; he never signs onto the Web and has never seen his stories online. He writes for Salon, he says, because 'I like the daily rhythm and the immediacy.'" Waas was the winner in 1998 of the Society of Professional Journalists
Award for Depth Reporting for his coverage of Whitewater and the impeachment crisis.
Waas's reporting on the administration of George W. Bush
, especially with regard to the Plame affair
, has been called "groundbreaking" by New York University
journalism Professor Jay Rosen
, who considers Waas the "new Bob Woodward
": "By Woodward Now," Rosen writes of Waas, "I mean the reporter who is actually doing what Woodward has a reputation for doing: finding, tracking, breaking into reportable parts—and then publishing—the biggest story in town. The Biggest Story in Town (almost a term of art in political Washington) is the one that would cause the biggest earthquake if the facts sealed inside it started coming out now. Today the biggest story in town is what really went down as the Bush team drove deceptively to war, and later tried to conceal how bad the deception—and decision-making—had been."
In the Summer of 2006, writing in Nieman Reports, Jim Boyd, former deputy editorial page editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune for twenty-four years, prepared an "exclusive list" of newspaper reporters whom he considered "courageous," including among them Murray Waas: "People I consider courageous are Murray Waas at the National Journal
; Dan Froomkin
at washingtonpost.com
and niemanwatchdog.org; Warren Strobel and several of his colleagues at the Knight Ridder
Washington bureau (soon to be the McClatchy
Washington bureau); Walter Pincus
and Dana Priest
of the [Washington] Post. And, of course, Helen Thomas
."
In July 2007, GQ Magazine named Waas as one of four of "The Best Reporters You Don't Know About," writing about him: "Years of groundbreaking watchdog journalism have resulted in this nickname: the new Bob Woodward. His pieces on the Plame leaks and U.S. attorney firings inadvertently provided candidates with more ammunition against the current administration than any campaign strategist could hope for."
The Obama administration and members of Congress cited the report as a reason health care reform was needed.
In a column appearing only a few nights before the vote, following up on his own blog post on the same subject from two days, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman
wrote thst the actions of Assurant were representative of the "vileness of our current system" and illustrated why reform was necessary."
After passage of the health reform bill, Reuters followed up, with another story by Waas on April 23, 2010 disclosing that WellPoint, the nation's largest health insurance company, had similarly targeted policyholders with breast cancer, shortly after their diagnoses." The Reuters story asserted that WellPoint
utilized "a computer algorithm that automatically targeted... every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies."
An earlier investigation by the House Energy and Commerce Committee had determined that WellPoint
, Assurant, and a third company, UnitedHealth Group Inc., had made at least $300 million by improperly rescinding more than 19,000 policyholders over one five-year period.."
The Waas story garnered immediate attention. Published not only on Reuters' website, one of the nation's most highly trafficked news sites, it also appeared on seven of the ten most highly read news sites-- those of the New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo News, ABC News, MSNBC, and the Huffington Post.
On April 23, 2010, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius
wrote Wellpoint's CEO, Angela Braly, to say that Wellpoint's actions were "deplorable" and "unconscionable," and called on the company to "immediately cease these practices."
President Obama, whose late mother had problems with her own insurance carrier before she passed away from breast cancer, followed up on May 8, 2010, by severely criticizing WellPoint for the practice in his weekly radio address.
As a result of the intense pressure from the Obama administration, WellPoint agreed to voluntarily end such practices. The nation's other largest health insurance companies only days later followed suit.
Praising the reform, the New York Times editorial page said in a May 2, 2010 editorial:
Waas later won the Bartlett & Steele Award for Business Investigative Reporting from the Walter Cronkite School at Arizona State University for his stories on WellPoint and other health insurance companies. He also won a second award by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers
(SABEW) in the category of investigative reporting for reporting the same stories.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
freelance investigative journalist
Investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...
known most recently for his coverage of the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
planning for the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
and ensuing controversies and American political scandals such as the Plame affair
Plame affair
The Plame Affair involved the identification of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer. Mrs. Wilson's relationship with the CIA was formerly classified information...
(also known as the "CIA leak grand jury investigation
CIA leak grand jury investigation
The CIA leak grand jury investigation was a federal inquiry "into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a Central Intelligence Agency employee's identity," a possible violation of criminal statutes, including the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, and Title 18, United States Code,...
", the "CIA leak scandal", and "Plamegate"). His articles about such matters have appeared in National Journal
National Journal
National Journal is a nonpartisan American weekly magazine that reports on the current political environment and emerging political and policy trends. National Journal was first published in 1969. Times Mirror owned the magazine from 1986 to 1997, when it was purchased by David G. Bradley...
, where he has worked as a staff correspondent and contributing editor, The Atlantic, and, earlier the American Prospect
The American Prospect
The American Prospect is a monthly American political magazine dedicated to American liberalism. Based in Washington, DC, The American Prospect is a journal "of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics" which focuses on United States politics...
. Waas also comments on contemporary American political controversies in his personal blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
s Whatever Already! and at The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
. An "instant book", the United States v. I. Lewis Libby
United States v. Libby
United States of America v. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby" is the federal trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former high-ranking official in the George W. Bush administration....
which he edited, with research assistance by Jeff Lomonaco, was published by Union Square Press (an imprint of Sterling Publishing
Sterling Publishing
Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. is a publisher of nonfiction titles, with more than 5,000 books in print. Founded in 1949, it publishes a wide range of nonfiction and illustrated titles in categories which include art, biography/autobiography, body/mind/spirit, crafts, culinary, do-it-yourself,...
) in June 2007.
Personal history
Waas was born in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
and originally hoped to have a career in law and city politics ("To be the district attorney and mayor of the City of Philadelphia"), but he dropped out of George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
before graduating.
In 1987, when Waas was only twenty-six years old, he learned that he had a life-threatening "advanced form" of cancer. On June 26, 2006, Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz disclosed that Waas had been told that he had an "incurable Stage C" cancer and faced a "terminal diagnosis."
Subsequently, Waas successfully sued the George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
Medical Center, which had negligently "failed to diagnose his cancer, winning a $650,000 judgment ... in a 1992 verdict ... upheld by the D.C. Court of Appeals
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit known informally as the D.C. Circuit, is the federal appellate court for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Appeals from the D.C. Circuit, as with all the U.S. Courts of Appeals, are heard on a...
." Although, according to a pathologist hired by Waas to testify in the case, "90% of [such] patients die within two years," Waas survived and was later declared "cancer-free." His recovery and survival were later described as a "miracle" by the medical team treating him."
Although he initially shied away from writing about health care because of his history as a cancer survivor, in 2009 and 2010, Waas weighed in with a series of articles for Reuters, detailing how many of the nation's largest heatlh insurance companies, improperly, and even illegally, canceled the policies of tens of thousands of customers shortly after they were diagnosed with HIV, cancer, and other life threatening but costly diseases." One story disclosed that the health insurer, WellPoint, using a computer algorithm, identified women recently diagnosed with breast cancer and then singled them out for cancelation of their policies." The story not only caused considerable public outrage, but led Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius
Kathleen Sebelius
Kathleen Sebelius is an American politician currently serving as the 21st Secretary of Health and Human Services. She was the second female Governor of Kansas from 2003 to 2009, the Democratic respondent to the 2008 State of the Union address, and chair-emerita of the Democratic Governors...
, and President Barack Obama, to call on WellPoint to end the practice.
Pressured by the Obama administration, WellPoint and the nation's other largest health insurers agreed to immediately end the practice. Waas was credited with saving the lives of countless other cancer patients like himself, and making sure that thousands of other people did not have their insurance unfairly canceled. He won the Barlett & Steele Award for Business Investigative Reporting from the Walter Cronkite School of Arizona State University as well as other honors for the stories.
Professional career
While still attending college, Waas began working for American newspaper columnist Jack Anderson. His journalistic work has since been published in such publications as The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
, The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, Harper's, The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, and The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
.
In his twenties he was a staff writer and investigative correspondent for the Village Voice.
According to his appreciation of Anderson that Waas published in the Village Voice, after the columnist's death at the age of 83:
The series of columns we [Anderson and Waas] produced regarding the role of U.S. companies doing business with Idi AminIdi AminIdi Amin Dada was a military leader and President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. Amin joined the British colonial regiment, the King's African Rifles in 1946. Eventually he held the rank of Major General in the post-colonial Ugandan Army and became its Commander before seizing power in the military...
were instrumental in leading to the imposition of U.S. economic sanctions against the Amin regime, according to the congressman who originally sponsored legislation seeking the sanctions, and other key congressional staffers who worked on the issue. Some historians in turn say the sanctions may have played an instrumental role in Amin’s subsequent overthrow.
Ralph Nurnberger, a former staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and professor at Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
, later concluded in a study for the African Studies Review that the economic sanctions imposed against Amin by the U.S. led to Amin's downfall.Nurnberger wrote that the congressional initiative to impose the sanctions had garnered little attention or support until "Jack Anderson assigned one of his reporters, Murray Waas to follow the issue" and write regularly about it. At the time, Anderson's columns were published in more than 1,000 newspapers, which in turn had 40 million readers. Waas was eighteen and nineteen years old at the time he wrote the columns.
Prior to his overthrow from power, Amin had been alleged to have engaged in genocide and killed between 150,000 and 300,000 of his own citizens. The late Sen. Frank Church
Frank Church
Frank Forrester Church III was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senator from Idaho from 1957 to 1981....
(D-Id.), a chairman of the Senate Foreign Committee, later said the congressionally imposed boycott "contributed to the fall of Idi Amin." Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Or.), said that the sanctions caused the conditions that "would come to break Amin's seemingly invincible survivability."
During the Reagan administration, Waas was among a small group of reporters involved in breaking the story of the Iran-Contra affair
Iran-Contra Affair
The Iran–Contra affair , also referred to as Irangate, Contragate or Iran-Contra-Gate, was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration, senior Reagan administration officials and President Reagan secretly facilitated the sale of...
. Later, he also reported on Whitewater
Whitewater (controversy)
The Whitewater controversy was an American politics controversy that began with the real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their associates, Jim and Susan McDougal in the Whitewater Development Corporation, a failed business venture in the 1970s and 1980s.A New York...
and the Clinton impeachment for Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
.
Waas won an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship in 1992 to research and write about the rights of the institutionalized and incarcerated in the U.S. For his fellowship, he investigated substandard conditions and questionable deaths at institutions for the mentally retarded, mental hospitals, nursing homes, juvenile detention centers, and jails and prisons.
As part of his work for the Alicia Patterson Foundation, Waas published a 7,912 word article in the Los Angeles Times on April 3, 1994 detailing how mentally retarded children institutionalized by the District of Columbia government had died because of abuse and neglect. The story led to renewed scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Justice of the city's treatment of its mentally retarded wards and spurred on the settlement of a civil suit brought against the city government by the parents of children who had died due to abuse or neglect.
Following the presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush, in 1993, while a reporter for the The Los Angeles Times, Waas, along with his Los Angeles Times colleague Douglas Frantz, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
in the category of national reporting for his stories detailing that administration's prewar foreign policy towards the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
. That same year, Waas was also a recipient of the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, awarded by the Joan Shorenstein Barone Center on The Press, of the John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, for "a series that detailed United States policy toward Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
before the Persian Gulf war
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
.
More recently, he has worked as a national correspondent and contributing editor of National Journal.
Summarizing the stories that Waas wrote for National Journal
National Journal
National Journal is a nonpartisan American weekly magazine that reports on the current political environment and emerging political and policy trends. National Journal was first published in 1969. Times Mirror owned the magazine from 1986 to 1997, when it was purchased by David G. Bradley...
during 2005 and 2006 about the second Bush administration's policies that led up to war with Iraq, Washington Post online White House columnist Dan Froomkin, wrote on March 31, 2006:
- Slowly but surely, investigative reporter Murray Waas has been putting together a compelling narrative about how President Bush and his top aides contrived their bogus case for war in Iraq; how they succeeded in keeping charges of deception from becoming a major issue in the 2004 election; and how they continue to keep most of the press off the trail to this day.
- What emerges in Waas's stories is a consistent White House modus operandi: That time and time again, Bush and his aides have selectively leaked or declassified secret intelligence findings that served their political agenda -- while aggressively asserting the need to keep secret the information that would tend to discredit them.
While writing about the second Bush administration's policies that led up to war with Iraq, Waas simultaneously reported about the investigation of CIA leak prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation as to who leaked covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to the press-- illustrating in his reporting how the two stories were inexorably linked in that the effort to damage Plame was part of a broader Bush White House effort to discredit those who were alleging that it had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war.
Plame's identity as a covert CIA agent was leaked to the media by senior Bush White House officials to discredit and retaliate against her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had alleged the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
. I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
, was later convicted on federal charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in an attempt to conceal his own role and that of others in the Bush White House in outing Plame, although President Bush would later commute Libby's thirty-month prison sentence. Waas not only wrote the first story disclosing that Libby had leaked Plame's identity to New York Times reporter Judith Miller
Judith Miller (journalist)
Judith Miller is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, formerly of the New York Times Washington bureau. Her coverage of Iraq's alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction program both before and after the 2003 invasion generated much controversy...
, but the same story also paved the way for Miller, then in jail for more than a hundred days, to be released and testify against Libby.
On Aug. 6, 2005, Waas disclosed for the first time that it was Libby who had leaked Plame's name to Miller, writing: "I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has told federal investigators that he met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003, and discussed CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to legal sources familiar with Libby's account.
That same story also disclosed that Libby was encouraging Miller to stay in jail and not reveal that Libby was her source. A short time later, citing the Waas story, prosecutor Fitzgerald wrote Libby's attorney, alleging that "Libby had simply decided that encouraging Ms. Miller to testify was not in his best interest" and that Libby discouraging Miller to testify might be an illegal effort to obstruct his investigation. Libby then wrote and called Miller saying that it was alright for her to testify. After spending more than a hundred days in jail, Miller was released, and provided testimony and evidence to prosecutors against Libby, that led to Libby's indictment, and subsequent conviction , on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz
Howard Kurtz
Howard "Howie" Alan Kurtz is an American journalist and author with a special focus on the media. He is host of CNN's Reliable Sources program, and Washington bureau chief for The Daily Beast. He is the former media writer for The Washington Post. He has written five books about the media...
wrote on April 17, 2006 that Waas' account "set in motion the waiver springing Miller from jail on contempt charges."
Several of Waas's later published accounts of that aspect of the Plame affair
Plame affair
The Plame Affair involved the identification of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer. Mrs. Wilson's relationship with the CIA was formerly classified information...
inform his Union Square Press book on the Libby trial
United States v. Libby
United States of America v. I. Lewis Libby, also known as "Scooter Libby" is the federal trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former high-ranking official in the George W. Bush administration....
published in June 2007, which he discusses in some detail in his interview with Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author. Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and the internet.-Early life:Goodman was born in Bay Shore, New York...
on Democracy Now!
Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
.
In a May 15, 2006 interview with Elizabeth Halloran, of U.S. News and World Report, when she asked whether he was "working on stories other than those involving the Fitzgerald
Patrick Fitzgerald
Patrick J. Fitzgerald is the current United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and a member of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel...
investigation
CIA leak grand jury investigation
The CIA leak grand jury investigation was a federal inquiry "into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a Central Intelligence Agency employee's identity," a possible violation of criminal statutes, including the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, and Title 18, United States Code,...
," Waas indicated that he has "been working on a long, explanatory piece about healthcare issues, the cervical cancer vaccine." Among the questions that he raised with Halloran are: "Why isn't that vaccine going to get to the people it should get to? Is it going to be locked away?"
Asked during the same interview by Halloran why Waas had chosen not only not to appear on cable television shows, but had also been known to decline to go on such shows as Nightline and Meet the Press, he responded: "There's not much of it that really enlightens us. There are journalists who don't do journalism anymore. They go on television; they're blogging; they're giving speeches; they're going to parties. And then at the end of the week they've had four or five hours devoted to journalism."
Waas also told Halloran:
- An acquaintance of mine, [Doonesbury cartoonist] Garry Trudeau, went a long time without going on TV, and we talked about having a 12-step program for people who appear on television too much. It would be a boom business in Washington. But Garry has lapses – he's been on Nightline, Charlie Rose. I also believe he did a morning show one time. But I've been steadfast. I have not been broken. I thought it was me and Garry against the world, the two amigos. He's left me hanging out there.
Waas similarly told Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz
Howard Kurtz
Howard "Howie" Alan Kurtz is an American journalist and author with a special focus on the media. He is host of CNN's Reliable Sources program, and Washington bureau chief for The Daily Beast. He is the former media writer for The Washington Post. He has written five books about the media...
, who had nicknamed Waas, "The Lone Ranger": "If my journalism has had impact, it has been because I have spent more time in county courthouses than greenrooms," Claude Lewis, a member of the Editorial Board of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote in a profile of the journalist that his low key approach had proved to be effective: "His quiet and sometimes unorthodox manner is disarming. He often lulls his subjects into thinking he isn't very sharp. But he is an intelligent and intense digger, who checks and double-checks his facts."
Book publication
The United States v. I. Lewis Libby, edited and with reporting by Waas, was published by Sterling PublishingSterling Publishing
Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. is a publisher of nonfiction titles, with more than 5,000 books in print. Founded in 1949, it publishes a wide range of nonfiction and illustrated titles in categories which include art, biography/autobiography, body/mind/spirit, crafts, culinary, do-it-yourself,...
's Union Square Press imprint on June 5, 2007.
The bulk of the book was an edited version of the trial transcript of the federal criminal trial of I. Lewis Libby, carefully culled from its original size of nearly a million words. The book also included an original essay written by Waas, entitled "The Last Compartment", which contained new information and reporting.
The book's editor and publisher told USA Today that the book was an attempt to be "like the published reports from the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group" in both thoroughness and accuracy, providing additional context to the original documentary record, and adding new reporting and information.
Reviewing the book in the Columbia Journalism Review, James Boylan, a contributing editor of the magazine, wrote for its November/December 2007 issue:
- Murray Waas, a disciple of Jack Anderson, the ultimate outsider, has assembled a plump volume of the trial and grand-jury records in the case of I. Lewis Libby... convicted in March of obstruction of justice and lying in the case involving disclosure of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. The transcripts make clear that Waas may have had less interest in Libby’s missteps than in the foibles of a cohort of Washington’s current insider journalists, among whom Tim Russert, Bob Woodward, Judith Miller (jailed for a time for refusing to testify), and Robert Novak... were the most celebrated. Their accounts of dealing with Libby and other members of the administration constitute an encyclopedia of insiderdom—the anonymous-source-concealment dance, the sometimes transparent charade of selective source protection, the willingness to be spun in exchange for access to power.
Notable assessments of Waas's journalism
On October 27, 1992, the late David ShawDavid Shaw (writer)
David Shaw was an American journalist who was best known for his reporting for the Los Angeles Times, where he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1991...
, then a staff writer for The Los Angeles Times who won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism
Pulitzer Prize for Criticism
The Pulitzer Prize for Criticism has been presented since 1970 to a newspaper writer who has demonstrated 'distinguished criticism'. Recipients of the award are chosen by an independent board and officially administered by Columbia University...
the previous year, assessed the reporting by his colleagues Murray Waas and Douglas Frantz on the first Bush administration's prewar policy towards Iraq leading up to the first Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
, which included "more than 100 stories, totaling more than 90,000 words": "The Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
's stories—many based on previously secret papers prepared by the Bush administration—alleged that the Bush administration tried to cover up what it had done by altering documents it supplied to Congress and by attempting to obstruct official investigations of aid to Iraq," quoting the observation of Leonard Downie, executive editor of The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, that his own newspaper was "slow in getting up to speed on that story, in part because it's the kind of story involving careful work with documents... Once you're behind, it takes a while to catch up." Downie credits the Los Angeles Times with "pav[ing] the way," saying that that is "why we began pursuing it after really not noticing it from the outset."
In June 1998, J.D. Lasica
J.D. Lasica
J. D. Lasica is the byline of Joseph Daniel Lasica, a social media consultant, online journalist and blogger. He is the author of Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation , a book about the copyright wars and the future of media.Lasica was born in Passaic, New Jersey and graduated...
published "The Web: A New Channel for Investigative Journalism", a "sidebar" to his article entitled "Salon: The Best Pure-Play Web Publication?", published in American Journalism Review
American Journalism Review
The American Journalism Review is a U.S. magazine covering topics in journalism. It is published six times a year by the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park. The AJR has been owned since the late 1980s by a foundation of the university...
, assessing reporting on the Impeachment of Bill Clinton
Impeachment of Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton, President of the United States, was impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice on December 19, 1998, but acquitted by the Senate on February 12, 1999. Two other impeachment articles, a second perjury charge and a charge of abuse of...
in Salon.com by Waas and his colleagues, observing that "Salon's coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky matter
Lewinsky scandal
The Lewinsky scandal was a political sex scandal emerging in 1998 from a sexual relationship between United States President Bill Clinton and a 25-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The news of this extra-marital affair and the resulting investigation eventually led to the impeachment of...
—its first sustained foray into classic investigative journalism—has served as a counterweight to the mainstream media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
's wolfpack mindset" and citing the view of Andrew Ross (then-managing editor of Salon); according to Lasica, "Salon's investigative journalism ... has raised old media's hackles because, Ross says, it was done the old-fashioned way: shoe leather, cultivating sources, working the phones—no new-media tricks here." Indeed, Lasica continues the 1998 account, by pointing out that Waas, who has written a dozen stories for Salon, is [at that time] a bit of a technophobe; he never signs onto the Web and has never seen his stories online. He writes for Salon, he says, because 'I like the daily rhythm and the immediacy.'" Waas was the winner in 1998 of the Society of Professional Journalists
Society of Professional Journalists
The Society of Professional Journalists , formerly known as Sigma Delta Chi, is one of the oldest organizations representing journalists in the United States. It was established in April 1909 at DePauw University, and its charter was designed by William Meharry Glenn. The ten founding members of...
Award for Depth Reporting for his coverage of Whitewater and the impeachment crisis.
Waas's reporting on the administration of George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, especially with regard to the Plame affair
Plame affair
The Plame Affair involved the identification of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer. Mrs. Wilson's relationship with the CIA was formerly classified information...
, has been called "groundbreaking" by New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
journalism Professor Jay Rosen
Jay Rosen
Jay Rosen is a media critic, a writer, and a professor of journalism at New York University.Rosen has been on the journalism faculty at New York University since 1986; from 1999 to 2005 he served as chair of the Department.He has been one of the earliest advocates and supporters of citizen...
, who considers Waas the "new Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward
Robert Upshur Woodward is an American investigative journalist and non-fiction author. He has worked for The Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter, and is currently an associate editor of the Post....
": "By Woodward Now," Rosen writes of Waas, "I mean the reporter who is actually doing what Woodward has a reputation for doing: finding, tracking, breaking into reportable parts—and then publishing—the biggest story in town. The Biggest Story in Town (almost a term of art in political Washington) is the one that would cause the biggest earthquake if the facts sealed inside it started coming out now. Today the biggest story in town is what really went down as the Bush team drove deceptively to war, and later tried to conceal how bad the deception—and decision-making—had been."
In the Summer of 2006, writing in Nieman Reports, Jim Boyd, former deputy editorial page editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune for twenty-four years, prepared an "exclusive list" of newspaper reporters whom he considered "courageous," including among them Murray Waas: "People I consider courageous are Murray Waas at the National Journal
National Journal
National Journal is a nonpartisan American weekly magazine that reports on the current political environment and emerging political and policy trends. National Journal was first published in 1969. Times Mirror owned the magazine from 1986 to 1997, when it was purchased by David G. Bradley...
; Dan Froomkin
Dan Froomkin
Dan Froomkin is the Senior Washington Correspondent for the Huffington Post. His work is now collected . He previously wrote a column for the online version of The Washington Post called White House Watch....
at washingtonpost.com
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
and niemanwatchdog.org; Warren Strobel and several of his colleagues at the Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by The McClatchy Company on June 27, 2006, it was the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspapers sold.- History :The corporate ancestors of...
Washington bureau (soon to be the McClatchy
The McClatchy Company
The McClatchy Company is a publicly traded American publishing company based in Sacramento, California. It operates 30 daily newspapers in 15 states and has an average weekday circulation of 2.2 million and Sunday circulation of 2.8 million...
Washington bureau); Walter Pincus
Walter Pincus
Walter Haskell Pincus is a national security journalist for The Washington Post. He has won several prizes including a Polk Award in 1977, a television Emmy in 1981, the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in association with other Washington Post reporters, and the 2010 Arthur Ross Media...
and Dana Priest
Dana Priest
Dana Priest is an American author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Priest has worked almost 20 years for The Washington Post. As one of the Post's specialists on National Security she has written many articles on the United States' "War on terror." In 2006 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Beat...
of the [Washington] Post. And, of course, Helen Thomas
Helen Thomas
Helen Thomas is an American author and former news service reporter, member of the White House Press Corps and opinion columnist. She worked for the United Press and post-1958 successor United Press International for 57 years, first as a correspondent, and later as White House bureau manager...
."
In July 2007, GQ Magazine named Waas as one of four of "The Best Reporters You Don't Know About," writing about him: "Years of groundbreaking watchdog journalism have resulted in this nickname: the new Bob Woodward. His pieces on the Plame leaks and U.S. attorney firings inadvertently provided candidates with more ammunition against the current administration than any campaign strategist could hope for."
Investigation of the Health Insurance Industry
On the eve of the historic health reform vote in Congress, on March, 17, 2010, Reuters published a story by Waas, detailing how one of the nation's largest insurance companies, Assurant, had a "company policy of targeting policyholders with HIV" for cancelation of their policies once they were diagnosed. The story asserted: "A computer program and algorithm targeted every policyholder recently diagnosed with HIV for an automatic fraud investigation, as the company searched for any pretext to revoke their policy... [T]heir insurance policies often were canceled on erroneous information, the flimsiest of evidence, or for no good reason at all."The Obama administration and members of Congress cited the report as a reason health care reform was needed.
In a column appearing only a few nights before the vote, following up on his own blog post on the same subject from two days, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman
Paul Krugman
Paul Robin Krugman is an American economist, professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times...
wrote thst the actions of Assurant were representative of the "vileness of our current system" and illustrated why reform was necessary."
After passage of the health reform bill, Reuters followed up, with another story by Waas on April 23, 2010 disclosing that WellPoint, the nation's largest health insurance company, had similarly targeted policyholders with breast cancer, shortly after their diagnoses." The Reuters story asserted that WellPoint
WellPoint
WellPoint, Inc. is the largest health plan company in the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. It was formed when WellPoint Health Networks, Inc. merged into Anthem, Inc., with the surviving Anthem adopting the name, WellPoint, Inc...
utilized "a computer algorithm that automatically targeted... every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies."
An earlier investigation by the House Energy and Commerce Committee had determined that WellPoint
WellPoint
WellPoint, Inc. is the largest health plan company in the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. It was formed when WellPoint Health Networks, Inc. merged into Anthem, Inc., with the surviving Anthem adopting the name, WellPoint, Inc...
, Assurant, and a third company, UnitedHealth Group Inc., had made at least $300 million by improperly rescinding more than 19,000 policyholders over one five-year period.."
The Waas story garnered immediate attention. Published not only on Reuters' website, one of the nation's most highly trafficked news sites, it also appeared on seven of the ten most highly read news sites-- those of the New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo News, ABC News, MSNBC, and the Huffington Post.
On April 23, 2010, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius
Kathleen Sebelius
Kathleen Sebelius is an American politician currently serving as the 21st Secretary of Health and Human Services. She was the second female Governor of Kansas from 2003 to 2009, the Democratic respondent to the 2008 State of the Union address, and chair-emerita of the Democratic Governors...
wrote Wellpoint's CEO, Angela Braly, to say that Wellpoint's actions were "deplorable" and "unconscionable," and called on the company to "immediately cease these practices."
President Obama, whose late mother had problems with her own insurance carrier before she passed away from breast cancer, followed up on May 8, 2010, by severely criticizing WellPoint for the practice in his weekly radio address.
As a result of the intense pressure from the Obama administration, WellPoint agreed to voluntarily end such practices. The nation's other largest health insurance companies only days later followed suit.
Praising the reform, the New York Times editorial page said in a May 2, 2010 editorial:
Americans are already starting to see the benefits of health care reform... In recent days insurers and their trade association have rushed to announce that they will end rescissions immediately...
The insurers decided to act quickly after they were whacked by some very bad publicity. An investigative report by Reuters said that one of the nation’s biggest insurers, WellPoint, was targeting women with breast cancer for fraud investigations that could lead to rescissions.
Waas later won the Bartlett & Steele Award for Business Investigative Reporting from the Walter Cronkite School at Arizona State University for his stories on WellPoint and other health insurance companies. He also won a second award by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers
Society of American Business Editors and Writers
The Society of American Business Editors and Writers is an association of business journalists. Its headquarters is at the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri....
(SABEW) in the category of investigative reporting for reporting the same stories.
External links
- Murray S. Waas Website – Personal website (incomplete; under construction).
- Murray Waas – Personal website (with articles by Waas).