Re: The White House's Bad Drug Deal


"Jim Higgins" <gordian238@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:g6qdnXHfFrYN0eDXnZ2dnUVZ_sednZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The White House's Bad Drug Deal
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/08/white-houses-bad-drug-deal

Obama?s sellout on health care is hardly any secret, but this week's
news of an outright backroom deal guaranteeing drug makers control over
pricing is one for the history books. Even the Republicans didn?t lay
down for big business quite like this.

As it now stands, there is no control over drug pricing in the US (save
for a gesture in that direction under the Medicare Part D prescription
drug insurance plan for the elderly). The system allows drug firms to
set prices for prescription drugs under Medicare, in what amount to
sweetheart deals with private insurance companies. Because drug pricing
and insurance costs are set?basically at will?by these two industries,
critics have demanded the government step in and set prices. Those
demands haven?t gone anywhere, but never has there been an explicit
announcement from on high about the arrangement. It?s always been just
another one of Washington?s dirty little secrets.


Here is the way the Times reported it, along with an extraordinary
public concession from the President:

?We were assured: ?We need somebody to come in first. If you come
in first, you will have a rock-solid deal,? ? Billy Tauzin, the former
Republican House member from Louisiana who now leads the pharmaceutical
trade group, said Wednesday. ?Who is ever going to go into a deal with
the White House again if they don?t keep their word? You are just going
to duke it out instead.?
A deputy White House chief of staff, Jim Messina, confirmed Mr.
Tauzin?s account of the deal in an e-mail message on Wednesday night.
?The president encouraged this approach,? Mr. Messina wrote. ?He
wanted to bring all the parties to the table to discuss health insurance
reform.?

As for the drug company's $80 billion voluntary gift to the President to
help achieve the appearance of bi-partisan health care reform, it?s all
smoke and mirrors. No more than $20 billion will go to help Medicare
recipients. The rest is to be doled out according to some unknown plan
set forth by the drug makers. And the money to help the elderly is
limited to brand-name drugs, many of them coming off patent and about to
go generic. The industry wants to keep on selling the more expensive
brand-name versions, and thus will supposedly subsidize the elderly to
buy those products. Put another way, a person covered under Medicare
could save money under the existing plan if he/she buys generics. Under
the Big Pharma plan, elderly people who choose the name-brand drug will
get a subsidy to keep them from switching to generics that would save
money across the entire system.

Perhaps this might be the appropriate time to remind you that politics is
"the art of the possible" and that politicians often will settle for what
they can get while fully aware that it isn't nearly enough. Rome was not
built in one day, but one does what one can and keeps on chipping away at
the problem in order to reduce it to its most manageable size.

If you're going to fuss about how little we're going to get, you can still
be sure that it'll be miles ahead of what we got over the past four decades,
when nothing was accomplished. Or, are you comfortable with that kind of
progress? To me, anything is better than nothing and, if I can't get all
that I think we need, I'll be here to fight for improvements again another
day.

Hal


.

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