Having come into office promising unprecedented transparency, having bills online for days before signing to give the public a chance to respond, unprecedented distance from lobbyists, etc., the Obama administration, according to a report in the New York Times (in fact, everything that follows is from the New York Times),
- made a back-door, secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry to limit its costs in return for its early support of healthcare reform,
- but did not prevent House and Senate committees from ignoring that deal in their draft legislation,
- which led Big Pharma to threaten to abandon its support unless the White House reaffirmed its original deal,
- with the result that “White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion,”
- as a result of which “House and Senate Democrats loudly protested that they would not be bound by any such agreement to remove clauses allowing government negotiation of drug prices under Medicare — something Democrats have sought for years,”
- following which “Several Senate Democrats said Friday that, in a private meeting, White House officials had told them there was no such deal, sowing yet more confusion,”
- which led the White House to contend for two days that “the Senate Democrats had misunderstood the White House aide’s comments,”
- after which “the White House appeared Friday night to back away,”
- claiming later Friday that it “had not intended to confirm that the deal ruled out price negotiations.”
Got that? Good.
On Wednesday, former Congressman Billy Tauzin, chief lobbyist for Big Pharma, told the New York Times:
“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.”
So, is Tauzin now duking it out? Of course not.
On Friday night, however, the drug industry lobby appeared to line up once again with the White House, perhaps satisfied that the White House had at least ruled out the price rebates in the House bill.
Asked about the White House statements, Ken Johnson, a senior PhRMA official, said, “All of the questions about what was in the agreement distract from our shared goal of making sure everyone has access to health care coverage.”
The country’s in good hands….
