I’d heard about it somewhere a while back. Now Robert Reich has confirmed it wasn’t my imagination.
In an article today on Salon.com, Reich talks about Big Pharma’s secret deal with the White House: In exchange for the industry’s support of his health care plan, Pres. Obama has promised not to use the government’s purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices.
That, folks, is called a sellout. Obama talks of paying for his plan with cost savings and efficiencies. Yet before any legislation sees the light of day, he secretly gives away one of the largest, most obvious savings opportunities.
George Bush did the same thing when establishing the Medicare drug benefit, and I’ve never forgiven him for it. Government is the only entity with enough clout to negotiate lower prices on drugs — to the very great benefit of millions of people — and this is the second time it has yielded to Big Pharma.
Disgusting. Typical, but disgusting. The legislation we ultimately get will probably be too watered down to accomplish anything — except maybe grant generous stimulus funds to Big Pharma to encourage its wonderful research and development of expensive new miracle drugs to benefit all Americans.
He’ll do whatever it takes to get his plan in motion… he’s not screwing around. He wants the names of those who oppose his new plan 🙁 I’m skerd – LOL!
_________
The whole thing is enough to make a grown woman cry. 😥
If he keeps doing stuff like this, the plan is going to fail. Just what the GOP wants.
__________
I’d rather it fail to pass at all than get passed but fail because it just screws things up even more — which is what I expect will happen.
My theory, which admittedly is the product of an INTJ mind and INTJs can develop ridiculously complex theories, is that his strategy is to have an already insufficient plan get shot down in Congress so that he can blame them, which would actually be a smart political move on his part. It would come at great cost to his popularity with voters, and it would piss a number of liberal and moderate Democrats off, but this early in his presidency, he can afford to hedge a bet that he can recover–namely by going back and hitting them with a plan that makes it clear that if you don’t want special interests involved, you have to have a single-payer system. That would then take care of not only the pharmaceutical industry, but the insurance industry, too, which, despite the shrill Republican shrieking about government bureaucrats deciding who gets health care, already DOES decide who gets health care. At this point, I’d say a government bureaucrat is better than an insurance company bureaucrat because insurance companies are driven by one thing, and one thing only: PROFIT.
So, how’s that for convoluted? Yeah. I need to get to sleep.
___________
I, too, need to get to sleep. I’ll try this again in the morning.
___________
Yep, decidedly convoluted, but nothing is too outlandish for a determined politician. I would guess this wasn’t/isn’t his original plan, but it may end up working out this way, either by accident or as a Plan B. It’s depressing, watching all the power brokers playing their games with health care reform while the consumers sit on the sidelines waiting to see how they’re going to get screwed this time.
I wonder what other surprises are in store for the American people.
___________
I’m not sure I want to know.