Raul Grijalva asks if industry gets "first big piece of the pie and we just fight over the crust"?

[madfloridian]

Raul Grijalva is chair of the Progressive Caucus. I agree with him.

Today someone said this to me: "you're just a party loyalist who shares Blue Dog sensibilities"

It really struck me odd because I had just written a post criticizing Blue Dogs who did not think of themselves as Democrats and who referred to those in our party in the third person.

In a post by Steve Hildebrand at Huffington Post he had overheard a Blue Dog asking "what do we have to do to get the Democrats off our back?"

Steve remarked that it seemed pretty easy: "Start acting like Democrats. Your Blue Dog label is a shield you hide behind, not a place where leadership is shown."

Then I was thinking and wondering why I felt so down about the health care reform today.
I figured out it is because I don't trust the party leadership on this. Sad to say that but true.

I am upset that Governor Dean is now saying that the House Blue Dogs were right to demand that a new public option not use the Medicare payment schedule because it would undermine the insurance companies too much. He says the public option can't be run at Medicare prices because it would undercut the private sector. Here is the video of Dylan Ratigan interviewing Howard Dean last Friday.

The comments are in the last minute of the interview.

So those on Medicare would be getting the short end of things because even the public option would pay more?? Doesn't make sense to me. Someone has some "splainin" to do.

I then read the article which reveals the great influence Republican Billy Tauzin has had in constructing parts of this bill. He got to meet with Rahm Emanuel and Nancy DeParle at least twice, and he has been reassured as far as I can figure that Medicare will STILL be unable to bid on drug prices for seniors because of a deal he made with them on behalf of big pharma.

White House affirms deal on drug costs

The drug industry trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, also opposes a public insurance plan. But its lobbyists acknowledge privately that they have no intention of fighting it, in part because their agreement with the White House provides them other safeguards. Mr. Tauzin said the administration had approached him to negotiate. “They wanted a big player to come in and set the bar for everybody else,” he said. He said the White House had directed him to negotiate with Senator Max Baucus, the business-friendly Montana Democrat who leads the Senate Finance Committee. Mr. Tauzin said the White House had tracked the negotiations throughout, assenting to decisions to move away from ideas like the government negotiation of prices or the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada. The $80 billion in savings would be over a 10-year period. “80 billion is the max, no more or less,” he said. “Adding other stuff changes the deal.”

After reaching an agreement with Mr. Baucus, Mr. Tauzin said, he met twice at the White House with Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff; Mr. Messina, his deputy; and Nancy-Ann DeParle, the aide overseeing the health care overhaul, to confirm the administration’s support for the terms.

“They blessed the deal,” Mr. Tauzin said. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House was not bound by any industry deals with the Senate or the White House.

Now back to my being called a "party loyalist who shares Blue Dog sensibilities".

I don't think so, not at all.

That is a thoughtless comment that goes to the heart of many problems that Democrats have now.

The problem? If we expect our party to use its majority to get vitally important things done...we are called purists by many here. Those of us who post about the reproductive rights of women, and those of us who think it is way past time to get rid of DADT are considered by many here to be too demanding of our party and its majority.

Then when we go further and point out that even those who purport to be speaking for us are not actually doing it, that they are too protective of the corporate world..then we are being disloyal to the party and to the president.

So to be quite frank, I don't know for sure what I am right now. I don't believe anyone much of the time anymore.

I think when the president I worked so hard to elect chose his Chief of Staff, he chose the way the party would be going. He said Rahm would "have his back."

If having his back means making deals like the above with Tauzin, then I think many are going to rethink some loyalties.

I agree with Raul Grijalva, chair of the Progressive Caucus:

In an interview on Wednesday, Representative Raul M. Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who is co-chairman of the House progressive caucus, called Mr. Tauzin’s comments “disturbing.”

“We have all been focused on the debate in Congress, but perhaps the deal has already been cut,” Mr. Grijalva said. “That would put us in the untenable position of trying to scuttle it.”

He added: “It is a pivotal issue not just about health care. Are industry groups going to be the ones at the table who get the first big piece of the pie and we just fight over the crust?

Yes, it appears the deal has already been cut.

I guess Representative Grijalva and I are both Democrats who want the party to do Democratic things which they were elected to do.

I guess that makes me a member of the Democratic wing of the Democratic party, and seems there are not many of us left lately.

[madfloridian]

1. "Come in first, you will have a rock-solid deal"

More from the NYT article...

"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."

So even with a big majority in Congress and the White House, there will still be no bidding on Medicare drug prices to lower costs.

[balantz]

2. Raul Grijalva is one of the few genuine Dems. n/t

[madfloridian]

3. Yes, he is. And he sounds worried.

.

[truedelphi]

13. Yep, he is.

Maxine Waters, Dennis Kucinich, Lynn Wolsey and a fewo thers.

But far too few.

And the middle incomed ain't got a shot in hell unless/until one of them gets to be inside the Oval Office.

[balantz]

15. Unfortunately someone like Grijalva will never be allowed to occupy the POTUS seat by the PTB. n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. There are plenty of us left, just not in Congress

Next time the New York Times runs an article on health care, look at the comments in the order "Readers' Recommendations." You will find overwhelming support for single-payer health care, and lots of entries scolding the NYT for not covering that option.

Even the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, which is notorious for the knuckle-dragging freepers who inhabit its comment sections, if you look at the entries in the order "number of votes," single-payer health care wins. The main opponent now is a guy whom I believe to be a country club Republican, and an operative at that, because he keeps writing as if the Health Savings Account is the obvious answer for everyone.

[madfloridian]

6. Maybe, but we divided up on this issue.

And in unity there is strength.

And Dean is most likely disgusted with all the harassment of him by single payer groups and decided he can't be what they want him to be.

So we get nothing.

[slipslidingaway]

18. We'll get nothing...must be the fault of single-payer groups for not compromising.

Here we go again :argh:

[madfloridian]

5. More from Huffington Post:

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.

..."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?

Finally the party leaders drew that bright line in the sand, but they did it for pharma.

MR. AXELROD: Look, we have gotten a long way down the road by not drawing bright lines in the sand, other than on the major points, which is that we can't add to the deficit with this healthcare reform, so it has to be paid fore, it has to reduce costs, and we want to make sure that all Americans have a quality, affordable health care. Those are the, those are the things that have to be accomplished. People have different ideas. We're willing to listen to those ideas. But that's where we're--that--those are the imperatives that we have to sell.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Can't add to the deficit...so can't negotiate for lower drug prices?

Does... not ....compute.

[truedelphi]

14. Obama's campaign promises were probably

Just the lies told to get his corporation-complicit butt seated in the Oval Office.

We needed a leader and we got a politician

:-(

[madfloridian]

8. “They wanted a big player to come in and set the bar for everybody else”

So they chose Tauzin?

This is just plain pandering.

[madfloridian]

9. Really, who cares.

:shrug:

[Wetzelbill]

10. I met Grijalva a few years ago

He's a great guy and a true Dem. A real man of the people.

[madfloridian]

19. From everything I have heard about him....I do agree with you.

:hi:

[madfloridian]

11. Time's Karen Tumulty has more coverage.

Deal with Pharma Puts White House, Congressional Dems at Odds

It was only a few years ago that an up-and-coming member of the House Democratic leadership pointed to a cozy arrangement in the Republican-written Medicare prescription-drug program as a symptom of everything wrong with Washington. The 2003 bill barred the government from negotiating for lower drug prices for its 43 million Medicare recipients. Instead, that task was delegated to private insurers and their agents, whom Democrats argued — and still argue — don't have the muscle to get the steep discounts that a huge government program could. "Direct negotiation for lower prescription-drug prices is directly related to our lobbying and ethics reform legislation," Rahm Emanuel, then the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told the New York Times in January 2007. Both were needed, he said, "to make sure that special interests do not control what happens in Congress." The Medicare bill passed the House but died in the Senate.

..." But the drug industry has also gotten something in return for its support. As reported Thursday in the New York Times, the White House agreed privately not to push for anything beyond the $80 billion in savings that the industry promised over the next 10 years. "The President encouraged this approach," deputy chief of staff Jim Messina told the Times. He wanted to bring all the parties to the table to discuss health-insurance reform."

That puts the White House on the other side from House Democrats, who are trying to subject the drug industry to the kind of direct price negotiations with Medicare that Emanuel once championed. The White House also agreed, sources say, not to get behind a provision in the House bill that would eliminate a good deal that the industry got from another provision in the Medicare prescription-drug program. The law shifted 6 million eligible beneficiaries from Medicaid — which pays lower prices for drugs — to the Medicare drug plan. In just the first two years of the program, that shift of beneficiaries from one program to the other produced an estimated $3.7 billion windfall for the industry, according to a report last year by the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

House Democrats are none too pleased by the White House pact with the drug industry. "We were never part of that deal. We are not bound by that deal," says Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of three panels that wrote the House bill. "It was not particularly a deal I would have made."

[madfloridian]

12. The Nation says Tauzin let the deal leak because Pelosi opposes it.

"The fate of healthcare reform may depend not on the Senate or the White House but on Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. What prompted Billy Tauzin to spill the beans on his deal-making with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was the House measure that specifies government's right to bargain for lower prices. No, no, no! Tauzin said. We've got a deal with the president, who says that won't be allowed.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi simply responds that the House is not bound by any deals made with the Senate or the White House. Her caucus must back up her words. They should pass the House bill, which will allow the government to do what any major customer would do in the same circumstances--use its leverage to demand lower prices.

If House Democrats stand their ground, then they will force a debate they can win with the American public. President Obama will have to choose between standing with the drug manufacturers or defending the original purpose of healthcare reform."

[truedelphi]

16. Pelosi is right on this. The House stands on its own, and is not supposed to

Honor deals made by the WH.

There are supposed to be THREE branches of government - and the legislative branch is separate from the Executive branch. Not that it would matter to someone like Tauzin.

[madfloridian]

17. It was good to hear Grijalva on with Dylan Ratigan today.

By phone, but he is seldom on national TV.

[madfloridian]

20. Senate Finance Committee to go along with big pharma deal by WH

"It appears that the Senate Finance Committee is planning to go along with the White House–drug-industry arrangement. With the White House and Senate siding with the drug industry, the House will face an uphill battle when the two versions reach a conference committee. Still, Waxman vows, "I think what we're doing is the right policy, and I'd rather benefit the seniors than let the drug companies have a big windfall."

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1915139,00.html?iid=tsmodule

[JDPriestly]

21. Waxman is great. Have any of you read his (fairly) new book?

I'm reading it now.