Big Pharma Gets Played

[Cronopio]

Source: Wall Street Journal

As an old Washington hand, pharmaceutical lobbyist Billy Tauzin should know better than to trust a politician. His corporate clients and their shareholders may soon pay for his attempt to get cozy with ObamaCare.

Mr. Tauzin -- the former Democratic Congressman turned Republican turned pharmaceutical frontman -- has been assuring his CEO employers that he can get them a good deal if they negotiate with Democrats instead of opposing them on health care. And to show its bona fides, the drug lobby announced in June an agreement with Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, promising $80 billion over the next decade to defray drug costs for seniors and to finance the Obama plan. Mr. Tauzin believed this giveaway would spare his industry from price controls and the reimportation of cheaper foreign drugs that would reduce company margins and profits.

Mr. Tauzin should have demanded a pre-nup. House Democrats declared last week that they aren't bound by Senator Baucus's deal. And this week they released a health-care bill that pocketed the industry concessions for senior drug coverage, and also imposed the very price controls Mr. Tauzin thought he'd shelved. These mandatory "rebates" on drugs for seniors would cost the industry $50 billion more over a decade than the $80 billion the industry promised Mr. Baucus. And that's optimistic. Democrat Henry Waxman cheerfully explained it was only "equitable" to devote the industry's "windfall" profits to seniors.

Meanwhile, Mr. Tauzin's fellow Cajun, Louisiana Republican David Vitter, sponsored an amendment that passed the Senate last week to allow Americans to buy cheap drugs from Canada over the Internet. Among the 55 Senators who voted for this form of drug reimportation was none other than Mr. Baucus. As for the White House, Mr. Waxman last week said he'd been told that the Administration also doesn't feel bound by the $80 billion agreement. This isn't surprising since Mr. Obama had co-sponsored the same legislation with Mr. Vitter when he was an Illinois Senator in 2006. ...

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124770335901048655.html#mod=article-outset-box

[babylonsister]

1. A rethug whining in the wsj? Say it isn't so! nt

[Cronopio]

2. It made *my* day a bit brighter. :) nt

[caseymoz]

3. Oh, fracking, hoo. A guy hired to screw us gets screwed.

I think we should all send him sympathy letters. What does everyone here say? No industry lobbyist should ever suffer this.

I just had a horrible thought that this story is a red-herring. Something designed to make us think the bill is already a done deal so we should look the other way.

We can't let this go now. Instead, we have to stiffen Congress' spine. Time to call them.

[checks-n-balances]

4. What - did they think it was going to be Medicare "Reform" redux?

The one where there was no limitation on pharmaceutical costs that Big Pharma would charge and that government would pay? Yeah, maybe that would be worth the $80 billion to Tauzin & co. to be able to write this bill, too.

The part I find unbelievable is that Baucus didn't go along with it, after the way he's been acting.