(Aug 6 2009) "Obama's health care plan helped by drug industry" (AP) - Drug industry helping Obama overhaul health care

[hobbitt]

The nation's drugmakers stand ready to spend $150 million to help President Barack Obama overhaul health care this fall, according to numerous officials, a staggering sum that could dwarf attempts to derail Obama's top domestic priority.

The White House and allies in Congress are well aware of the effort by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a somewhat surprising political alliance, given the drug industry's recent history of siding with Republicans and the Democrats' disdain for special interests.



Additionally, the industry is the major contributor to Healthy Economy Now, which recently completed a $12 million round of advertising nationally and in several states. The ads were made by firms with close ties to Democrats and the White House and generally reflected the administration's changing rhetoric on health care.


Drugmakers were the first group to reach agreement with the White House and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., announcing several weeks ago that they would absorb $80 billion in costs over a decade.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has been critical of drug manufacturers, and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said several weeks ago the House was not bound by PhRMA and Baucus' agreement.

The messages meshed with the White House's changing rhetoric. An ad that began in mid-June said patients would be able to choose their own doctors. Another, launched in mid-July, focused on consumer protections, including a ban on insurance companies denying coverage due to pre-existing medical conditions.

To make the ads, the group hired GMMB, a political consulting and advocacy advertising firm with close ties to the White House and Senate Democrats, as well as AKPD, top White House strategist David Axelrod's former firm.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090808/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_health_care_drugmakers


And a related article at

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20090808/pl_bloomberg/arj2l450pam8_1

Drugmakers were among six groups that pledged to help Obama fund a health-care overhaul by cutting medical spending.

The other groups were hospitals, device makers, doctors, labor unions and insurers. Their representatives offered no specifics when the agreement was announced earlier this year. Representatives of these groups have been negotiating with the White House.

The cuts would begin in 2015 and be gradually increased as more Americans get insurance coverage through the overhaul efforts.


I am impressed by the apparent willingness of health industry providers to reduce their own revenue. But I do wonder about the motivation for this philanthropic attitude.

[BillDemo]

Talk about letting the fox into the chicken coop!

The drug industry is not donating 150 million out of the goodness of their hearts... This is an investment and they will expect a big return.
Most likely, they want to keep the price of drugs high and by collaborating with the Obama administration, they get to influence their future earnings.

[jlynne]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090808/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_health_care_drugmakers

I am impressed by the apparent willingness of health industry providers to reduce their own revenue. But I do wonder about the motivation for this philanthropic attitude.

Limited liability for drugs like phen/fen and vioxx. Discouraged research so fewer upstarts, less competition, and longer profitability for existing durgs. And a seat at the table for price controls and federal grant money.

Merck is paying 80 million to settle the Vioxx suits. 130 million isn't all that much more considering.

[smiledr]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204908604574336460960419516.html?m od=djemEditorialPage#articleTabs%3Darticle

Drug Dealers
The White House buys Big Pharma’s silence.

Democrats are trying to explain opposition to ObamaCare as a sinister conspiracy controlled by the hidden hand of the health-care industry. Psychologists call this projection. Why bother with a new conspiracy when you’ve already clinched a secret deal with the President?

Part of the Obama health strategy has been to assiduously co-opt the key health “stakeholders,” primarily with the leverage that legislation was inevitable so they might as well negotiate. Doctors, hospitals, insurers and the drug makers bought it—or perhaps it is more accurate to say were bought. This week it emerged that the pharmaceutical industry’s supposedly voluntary peace offering to cut drug costs by $80 billion to help finance ObamaCare was an explicit quid pro quo in exchange for White House protection.

After the industry trade group PhRMA announced the plan in the Rose Garden in June, liberals on Capitol Hill promptly declared that they were “not bound” by it, as Henry Waxman and Nancy Pelosi repeatedly put it. If the industry could do Mr. Obama the favor of $80 billion, liberals wanted it to eat $100 billion in cuts, or $160 billion, or more.

“The President made the agreements he made,” Mrs. Pelosi said. “And maybe we’ll be limited by that. But maybe not.” Sure enough, the House health bill pockets the money and then imposes price controls in Medicare and other “rebates” from manufacturers, much like Medicaid requires now.


House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
.Chief pharma lobbyist Billy Tauzin’s clients were probably wondering about the return on their investment. Then, lo, Mr. Tauzin disclosed this week in a page-one story in the New York Times that, yes, the concessions were capped at $80 billion, no further. “We were assured: ‘We need somebody to come in first. If you come in first, you will have a rock-solid deal,’” Mr. Tauzin said. “Adding other stuff changes the deal.” The White House confirmed Mr. Tauzin’s account.

It’s astonishing to watch the press corps pass all this off as just another day at the Oval Office. During the Bush years, even eye contact with a business, CEO or lobbyist was treated as prima facie evidence of corruption. There was the furor over Dick Cheney’s “secret energy task force,” and even the Iraq war was engineered to benefit Halliburton, Blackwater and Big Oil. But apparently having corporate America dictate public policy is fine as long as it’s the largest expansion of the welfare state since the Great Society.

As for Mr. Tauzin’s gambit that playing nice would spare his industry, he evidently missed the sign hanging above Congress’s chambers: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Mr. Waxman responded, “PhRMA would like to see if they can get a bargain. I think that PhRMA should contribute more than PhRMA wants to contribute.” Senator Dick Durbin chimed in that “I don’t think any, if many, of us feel bound by any understanding or agreement along those lines.”

What this Abbott and Costello routine exposes is the industry folly of thinking that liberals could be appeased. By now it is beyond obvious that Democrats view whole segments of the health-care industry as expendable. After all, what do insurers really do, besides bilk consumers? Government already pays Medicare bills; it can handle the under-65 crowd too. Over time doctors can be transferred into the civil service, but if they’re good sports maybe at a higher pay grade than the DMV. As for drug research and development, the National Institutes of Health can fill in—and as a bonus, all those government-funded professors won’t care about profits either. For the Democrats running Congress, merely allowing a business to continue to exist is a concession.

Even if Mr. Tauzin’s strategy works this time around, it will only push his clients deeper into Mr. Waxman’s embrace as government pays for the majority of American medicine. If ObamaCare is defeated, it will be due to the common sense of the American people, not to the health-care lobbies that have become its political partners.

[Wyoming Dem]

Obama has kept EVERY campaign promise he made...To his biggest donors, to lobbyists, to corporate lackey's, to all of those who could pull strings, mount an offense and assure Obama of a win and now...time to pay the pipers and Obama has always been more than willing to dance to whatever tune they are playing. The Drug Industry, the same industry that counts many, many, many Congress people as major investors and stock holders
DOES NOTHING FOR FREE OR OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF THEIR HEART and this is just one more instance of the "Transparency President" up to his ass in back-alley dealing and barely legal subterfuge. "Transparency" is right...with this GUY, it's "now you see it now you don't" and his slight of hand is much quicker than the eye...(I hear "The Art Of Grifting" is required reading in Chicago...)

You know...how any thinking adult (and that may be the caveat) can stand up, keep a straight face and continue to support a GUY who is in NO SHAPE OR FORM the same guy that ran for POTUS and for whom they voted just defies creduality...It is hysterical and nonsensical and is an important lesson as to how easily a populous can be duped and hoodwinked by a smooth-talking, bullshitter of Olympic proportions. People want to believe SO BADLY that they will continue to make excuses for all of Obama's shenanigans, continue to swear that yes..."The Emperor is dressed beautifully" and avoid at all cost facing the fact that they have been "screwn" as the old timers here like to say. Those of us that did not vote for him have it much easier...we expected that virtually everything he said was a lie or an exaggeration and low and behold...we have not been disappointed.

[foxyladi]

if this monstrosity passes we are screwn.

[Laura Cereta]

The drug industry is already a big problem with the health care system. I don't trust them. Do you know how much money and time those pharmaceutical reps spend bribing doctor's? It's outrageous.

[foxyladi]

we have become a nation of (take this pill now)and the blue one later[-X

[Suzan]

The nation's drugmakers stand ready to spend $150 million to help President Barack Obama overhaul health care this fall, according to numerous officials, a staggering sum that could dwarf attempts to derail Obama's top domestic priority.

The White House and allies in Congress are well aware of the effort by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a somewhat surprising political alliance, given the drug industry's recent history of siding with Republicans and the Democrats' disdain for special interests.

Talk about upside down! The Dems are "discouraging" dissent and playing footsie with the drug industry to the tune of $150 mil?
How are we supposed to tell the good guys from the bad guys anymore?

[Lealy]

Talk about letting the fox into the chicken coop!

The drug industry is not donating 150 million out of the goodness of their hearts... This is an investment and they will expect a big return.
Most likely, they want to keep the price of drugs high and by collaborating with the Obama administration, they get to influence their future earnings.

And Bingo was his name o.

:e3:

[VotingHillary]

we have become a nation of (take this pill now)and the blue one later[-X

Welcome to the Matrix, Neo....

[hobbitt]

The implications of this statement just struck me:

The cuts would begin in 2015 and be gradually increased as more Americans get insurance coverage through the overhaul efforts.


The $150 million in advertising that Phrma is willing to spend will take place over the next couple of months.

The cuts they have agreed to will start six years from now. Six years from now, there will be a different make-up in Congress, perhaps a different administration, and perhaps a re-structuring of pharmaceutical companies.

Is there an attorney on board who can comment on the enforceability of "Handshake" agreements obligating a corporation X which is now re-organized as corporation Y?