2020 presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg released a list of his clients at McKinsey & Company on Tuesday night after critics pushed him for transparency on his work at the international consulting firm.
According to the list, which was posted on Medium, Buttigieg helped oversee “overhead expenditures” at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan in 2007.
“Now, voters can see for themselves that my work amounted to mostly research and analysis,” the South Bend, Indiana mayor wrote in the post. “They can also see that I value both transparency and keeping my word.”
Two years after Buttigieg completed his work as cost assessment consultant at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, the company announced it was laying off 1,000 employees and raising premiums in 2009.
When MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow asked Buttigieg on Tuesday whether his work at McKinsey had led to the layoffs, the candidate responded, “I doubt it.”
“I don’t know what happened in the time after I left,” he said.
Buttigieg’s involvement with the health care firm is particularly notable given his attacks against the progressive Medicare for All plans touted by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Buttigieg opposes the elimination of private insurance, as Warren and Sanders have proposed.
The South Bend mayor has faced growing scrutiny over his work at the consulting firm, particularly after a ProPublica investigation revealed last week that McKinsey had worked with ICE to devise certain cost-cutting measures, such as cutting back on food and medical care for migrants in detention centers.
