Why Aren't Progressive Groups Protesting Obama's Back-Room Deal with Big Pharma?
Today's NY Times front page reconfirmed the news that President Obama has made a back-room deal with the pharmaceutical industry to block any Congressional health care legislation that would allow Medicare or most other parts of the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry or would allow importation of cheaper drugs from Canada.
This is extraordinarily disturbing for several reasons:
- This is the only line in the sand that President Obama has drawn in setting forth what provisions are essential in a health reform bill in order for him to sign it instead of veto it. For example, Obama has refused to state that he won't sign a health reform bill without a robust public option. And indeed, the strongest version of the public option still on the table -- the one in the Committee Bill in the House -- is already fatally compromised: Its availability will be limited only to the individual insurance market and not to employers. According to the Congressional Budget Office, when it is fully implemented in 4 or 5 years, it will only insure a maximum of 10 million Americans (compared to over 35 million for Blue Cross) and will have no impact on bringing down health care costs.
- Such backroom deals with special interests and lobbyists are in direct conflict with Obama's campaign promises to change the way Washington does business. The deal was struck with Billy Tauzin, the pharmaceutical industry's chief lobbyist. For those who don't remember, Tauzin is the flamboyant former Democratic turned Republican Congressman from Louisiana who chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the same Committee now chaired by Henry Waxman, which is writing the House version of health care reform. Even as Tauzin was drafting the Medicare Drug bill -- which banned Medicare from negotiating lower prices with drug companies -- he was secretly negotiating a 2 million dollar a year job as the pharmaceutical industry's chief lobbyist.
- The ban on Medicare negotiating lower drug prices has cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars in higher drug costs and made the drug companies tens of billions of dollars at taxpayer expense, helping to undermine the financial viability of Medicare. According to the Medicare Trustees, the cost to the taxpayers of this provision will be $8.7 trillion over the next 75 years. That averages out to $116 billion a year, which alone would more than pay for the entire 10-year $1 trillion dollar estimated cost of Obama's Health Care reform, without raising taxes. In return for Obama agreeing with Big Pharma to continue this ban, Big Pharma has made unenforceable promises to cut federal drug costs by an aggregate of $80 billion over 10 years (i.e., $8 billion a year, barely a rounding error in the overall cost of health reform).
- Such deals are the epitome of what's wrong with Washington that candidate Obama criticized and President Obama now seems to embrace. Even as Obama is making such backroom deals with powerful special interests, he's telling progressives to back off on criticizing Blue Dog Democrats who want to undermine meaningful health care reform.
Commenting on the backroom deal with Tauzin and Big Pharma, the Deputy White House Chief of Staff told the NY Times, "The President encourages this approach. He wanted to bring all the parties to the table to discuss health insurance reform." But coming to the table is one thing. Buying the whole table is another.
This is a very bad sign that any health care reform bill which eventually passes both houses of Congress and is signed by President Obama will bring meaningful change that would make affordable health care available to all Americans and will "bend the arc" of escalating health care costs. As I cautioned in my recent Huffpo article entitled "ObamaCare," it's starting to look more and more as though "health care reform" will end up being mostly a federal bailout of the insurance and drug industries.
Here's my question: Where is the outrage against these kind of backroom deals from progressive organizations like Move On, Health Care for America Now, the AFL-CIO, the SEIU, and Families USA, who decided that the most "pragmatic" approach to health care reform was to take single payer off the table and back an incremental approach? Where's the pushback from the Congressional Progressive Caucus telling Obama that they won't vote for a bill which bans the government from negotiating lower drug prices?
Even taking the "pragmatic" incremental strategy at face value, there needs to be a two-way street between these progressive organizations and the Obama administration. Their role can't be just to try to mobilize public support for whatever health reform bill comes out of Congress, no matter how compromised and flawed. It must also be to set minimum standards for throwing their political support behind any such bill and to demand that Obama and Congress listen to the grassroots as well as to corporate lobbyists.
Obama's backroom deal with Big Pharma should fail the smell test with these organizations. They should be mobilizing their grassroots networks, not only to support the idea of health care reform, but to block backroom deals with special interests that undermine real reform. How about a petition campaign from Move On and HCAN demanding Obama renounce his deal with Big Pharma? How about a statement from the House Progressive Caucus that they won't vote for a Bill which includes a ban on the government negotiating drug prices?
Progressive organizations should be playing an inside/outside game with the Obama administration -- mobilizing the grassroots to support the administration when it 's bringing positive change and challenging the president to do better when he fails to stand up to the power of big money. They can't be so enamored with being offered a small seat at the White House table that they give up their political independence and their ability to think critically.
Progressives were outraged when the Bush administration and a Republican Congress banned Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices. Maybe it's time for a little bit of outrage when the Obama administration does the same.
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Miles Mogulescu spreads the rumor about a secret-deal even though the White House today denied any such deal was made. For spreading disinformation, he has been reported.
http://www
But, but, I'm just so happy he isn't Bush, even tho he has continued to do exactly what Bush did, that I'm willing to keep my mouth shut about all the things he said he was going to change and now says he isn't. Just give him another 3 or 4 terms and I'm sure he''l get it all done. You just have to be patient!
You left out that he's playing ultra super dooper 3 dimensional chess while we are playing go fish. We poor mortals can only watch in awe as this master works his genius.
Please keep harping on this, Mr. Mogulescu. There was an article on the HP August 6 that claimed the wh denied this deal, but i have searched the website today and i can't find it.
if it was proven to be untrue, i'd like to read the article AND the update all on one page, for continuity
If we are going to drive down medical costs, then a strong public option - available to companies as well as individuals and using its buying power to force down drug costs - is required. I'll do my best to hold my progressive Democratic Congressman and my President, though not my two Repub Senators, to a strong public option as a starting point.
We're not protesting because in the last 7 months we've become all too used to Obama selling us out. It's clear now that this is all we can expect for the next 3.5 years.
The two, consistantly, progressive Congressional legislators, Kucinich and Sanders, are protesting. The rest,( I don't know what Sen. Frankin is going to do.) are, all, seudo-Democrats. They are Republicans at heart. Even Obama promised better than this. ( He is not a progressiv
I think the deal of filling the 'hole' with Pharma and saving $500,000,000 for seniors with Medicare on their meds was a great thing...Th
I guess that's been forgotten about....
But it was greatly appreciated by my Mother!
I guess you mean the $8 billion dollar a year deal in June with pharmas. The Medicare hole, which caused an estimated 4% of Medicare part D recipients to stop taking their drugs, is still the same size - but drugs are 1/2 price and therefore twice as affordable while you're in the hole.
http://blo
I don't know, really. Neo-progressives seem very enamored of power and money, and they never seem to get all that upset until someone mentions prayer in public, which seems to be their cue for going ballistic.
They are what's happened to the once proud Democratic Party. Not that it ever was a perfect party, but it used to function as something more than the lesser of two jokes.
Maybe that's why Proud Dems. don't take the others too seriously any more......
They really have nothing to say of value and respect no one.
At least you feel both parties are a joke.
I do pray for all of us tho'......
All the progressives I know have given up hope for Obama. From PPIP, handling of TARP (yes, inhereted but Obama made it even worse), the GM bailouts, the lack of immigration reform, the lack of gay rights, the lack of H-1B visa reform, no smart grid, no new vision or investments in real infrustruc
The stimulus is just inflating a mini bubble right now. Obama failed to make any of the changes we need to make the markets fair and break up the monopolies destroying our economy.
So seeing Obama make secret deals with the root causes of health care reform isn't a surprise. Its exactly what he did with banking reform. That is to say he did nothing for working people and everything for the people who caused the problem. If you are still supporting Obama you are just as guilty as Bush supporters.
Funny, everyone I know that voted for our President still supports him strongly.
They also know he's done more in 6 months than most did in 4 years.
But keep posting...
Someone out there will believe you!
Oh........
Have you seen the #'s today?
The economy is better than it's been in 15 months.
Have a great day!
more of us will believe the first poster than you
check the polls
Can you name one thing that he said he would do when he was running for office that he has actually asccomplished? At best, Obama is a conventional thinker, hardly the really smart guy he was made out to be, and he has appointed and surrounded himself with conventional thinkers which are promoting the same old ideas thaqt got us into this mess in the first place. Treasurary is loaded with Goldman Sachs, the State Dept. with Clintonites, and Obama is now using signing statements, denying FFOIA demands and defending Bush era laws. So you and your friends keep supporting him all the while your heads are stuck some where dark and soundless. May Appollo help you when you see the light!
The greatest problem facing healthcare reform is funding. When Obama was campaigning for president, he was asked severally, how he was going to fund healthcare. His response was always from the savings gained by withdrawing troops from Iraq and revoking the Bush tax cuts for the rich.
Today, nobody is talking about those. The GDP shrunk more than 6% in the first quarter of this year and the budget deficit climbed to $1.3 trillion.
Funding healthcare requires either cutting entitlement programs or tax increases. President Obama has already sourced $750 billion through agreements with stakeholders in the healthcare industry. The remaining $250 billion has become very problematical on how to raise money for it. Politicians know that voting for tax increase is kiss of death.
I don't know if I'm lower middle class or just plain poor (b/c I lost my job) but I would gladly pay higher taxes for heath care. At least I'd know my taxes were going to help me and not toward worthless entitlements to corporations/big pharma. They pay (off) researchers at public universities who apply for federal grants in order to do research. When something worthwhile is discovered guess who reaps the benefits? Not I (the government) but big pharma. Go into any research facility and you'll see big pharma branding on everything: pens, paper, screen savers, mugs, thumb drives, mouse pads. Its enough to make you sick. Oh wait, you don't have health care...sig
Go to: http://www
Today 3.9 workers pay taxes into Medicare per every older American beneficiary. Because of higher life expectancy, by 2030 the baby boom generation retires, and it is projected that 2.4 workers will pay taxes into medicare per every olde American beneficiary.
The difference between 3.9 and 2.4 paying into the medicare represents unfunded obligations. The unfunded obligations is projected to be $34 trillion in 75 years.
And your point is? Are you one of the whiners that think spending billions for wars and the war machine is necessary so you can be SAFE while you die a premature death from some simple condition that would never have happened in any of the some 50 countries that have single payer?
no sources posted - move along!
Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act
http://en.
President Bush signed this into law in 2003.
2009 Budget Proposal
Medicare
http://www
Base line $420 Billion.
Prescription drug 10% = $42 Billion
Cost of prescription drug in Canada compared to US is 65 cents to every dollar.
Savings when purchased in Canada = $14.7 Billion.
If pharmaceutical companies accepts to contribute $8 billion per year for the next 10-years in order to fund healthcare plans, that is a good deal.
The House wanted to squeeze the pharm companies more, that is the difference.
Furthermore, the promise to contribute $8 billion per year is enforceable. The Finance Committee that is writing the bill will include it as part of source of financing for healthcare reform.
It's progress in the right direction, but I do think that they can get a better deal. I'm keeping my powder dry until I see the final legislation.
Immune System & Levee System :
All of the excellent health systems seem to have one thing in common, a well-organized preventative program.
I think a prevention system works as a 'levee' built against flood by the government, similarly, it also needs non-profit investments from the government on a large scale.
This might offer us the clue of why all of the free states have public insurance policy in place.
It won't be easy to draw some specific numbers on the economic effect of the 'levee' , but the flood measure without a stable 'levee' would be a house on the sand, as the too high level of 'preventable' chronic diseases in America shows.
Thank You !
as a happy screaming liberal i will glady yell when i know what i am yelling about. to the best of my knowledge there is no ink on paper as of yet.
i am not a buffoon going on about birth cerfitificates, throwing tea bags, and disrupting town halls.
we have no idea what was discussed in private meetings, and conspiracy theories aren't going help.
we know the time for single payer isn't here. that is a given. its going to take time to drag the usa into the 21st century. maybe next president -- given we don't go back into the dark ages of a republican revolution again. table scraps seem like a banquet at this point.
it helps to be informed before you go all crazy or you may as well get a tin foil hat and vote for chuck norris
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