CA Attorney General Rob Bonta is part of $573 million settlement with McKinsey & Co.
In 2021, the Washington Post published an alarming article about California Governor Gavin Newsom’s no-bid contracts with Blue Shield and McKinsey & Company, how he outsourced much of California’s vaccine rollout during the Covid crisis, and how “private contractors cost taxpayers millions of dollars, while demonstrating few clear results and papering over weaknesses in the country’s public health system.”
These no-bid contracts with private sector companies and non-profits make it impossible for taxpayers and journalists to hold government agencies and politicians accountable because there is no way to uncover exactly what we are receiving becausethe internal documents of private companiesare not subject to the state’s public records laws.
McKinsey & Company was also named as a significant player in the nationwide opioid crisis when in early 2021, 49 State Attorneys General, five territories and the District of Columbia reached settlement with McKinsey, related to the firm’s work for opioid manufacturers. McKinsey was ordered to pay approximately $600 million, which the states would use to address the impact of the opioid epidemic in their communities.
In March 2022, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a $6 billion settlement with Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, estimated to bring approximately $486 million to California to fund opioid addiction treatment and prevention.
The AG’s office gave more detail: “In addition to today’s up-to-$6 billion settlement with Purdue and the Sackler family, the Attorney General’s Office has helped secure up to $32.5 billion in relief nationwide, including a $26 billion settlement with opioid manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and distributors Cardinal, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen; as well as a $573 million settlement with McKinsey & Company. These settlements will bring up to $2.6 billion to California communities.”
While California continues to have a wicked Fentanyl crisis, the state continues to work with McKinsey & Company, despite their past work with Purdue Pharma: California Health & Human Services, the California DMV and Dept. of Social Services continue to work with McKinsey, according to verified sources.
During the Covid lockdowns, California Governor Gavin Newsom granted McKinsey a no-bid contract to push out vaccines, even though state and local agencies have the budgets and staff for disseminating critical public information.
Curiously, this was going on while Newsom simultaneously fought off his recall election.
WaPo reported in August 2021:
“When Gavin Newsom outsourced key components of California’s vaccine rolloutto the private sector during the pandemic’s darkest days last winter,the Democratic governor promised the changes would benefit the most vulnerable.
His “number one”reason for handing the reins to Blue Shield of California, an Oakland-based health insurance company, was “equity” —delivering vaccine doses to those at greatest risk, many in communities of color, he said in February.
But the $15 million contract with Blue Shield, plus another $13 million for McKinsey, did not deliver on that promise, according to state and county officials, as well as public health experts.”
Despite the state’s settlement with Purdue and McKinsey, local governments said they had their own set of issues to address. In December 2022, 30 locally elected officials from around the state sent a letter (below) to Gov. Newsom and the California Legislature asking the state to cease all contracts with McKinsey & Company:
“We need to make a stand against corporate giants like McKinsey by reviewing and rejecting all contracts with local governments,” they wrote.
Why? The officials said that with more than half a million Americans having died from an opioid overdose, “no family has escaped the pain and suffering that opioids have wrought on our country.”
They continued:
“The opioid epidemic was not a mistake. It was not an accident, or a natural disaster. It was not the result of a bad economy. It didn’t just come out of nowhere. We know now that the opioid crisis was planned. It was branded. It was packaged and sold and marketed.”
“According to New York Attorney General Letitia James, ‘the taproot’ of the opioid crisis in America was a decision by Purdue Pharma to aggressively market their deadly drug Oxycontin despite their full knowledge that their drug was highly addictive, medically questionable, and was killing and addicting scores of Americans. And thanks to the efforts of Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, we now know that the company that wrote the strategy and profited from Purdue’s deadly drug was a management consulting firm called McKinsey & Company.”
These public officials requested:
1) We are asking the Governor and state legislators to review all contracts involving
McKinsey and review to determine if there are other conflicts of interest.
2) Before a new contract to McKinsey is awarded, demand that McKinsey reveal their
clients and conflicts of interest.
3) Publicly support the local governments rights to file lawsuits to receive justice for
their communities and residents.
Yet McKinsey continues to work with state agencies.
It wasn’t just state and local government impacted: A Law360 article, McKinsey, Plaintiffs Spar Over Picking Opioid Bellwether Tribe, reported, “The White Mountain Apache Tribe, which on Jan. 25 hit McKinsey with a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act suit over the firm’s alleged role in the tribe’s opioid epidemic.”
That’s a RICO lawsuit.
The Globe sent a request to Gov. Newsom’s office asking why, even after AG Rob Bonta’s participation in a massive settlement against the company, the State of California continues to work with McKinsey & Co; what the contracts cover; and if the CHHS contract is still involved in the campaign drive to push out COVID vaccines? We have not received a reply from the governor’s office, but will report when we do.
For more information about McKinsey’s involvement in California’s Covid vaccination push, the opioid crisis and the settlement:
The Washington Post article: Private Consultants Vaccination Drive Outsourced
A New York Times article: Behind the Scenes, McKinsey Guided Companies at the Center of the Opioid Crisis
Another NYT article about the settlement: McKinsey paid a 600 million dollar settlement for their role in the opioid crisis
Original Article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/22/private-consultants-vaccination-drive-outsourced/
Original Article: https://californiaglobe.com/articles/gov-newsoms-no-bid-covid-contract-with-mckinsey-co-continues/
