2009-08-09 How the White House's Deal With Big Pharma Undermines Democracy

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Excerpt

I'm a strong supporter of universal health insurance, and a fan of the Obama administration. But I'm appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry's lobbying arm to buy their support.

Last week, after being reported in the Los Angeles Times, the White House confirmed it has promised Big Pharma that any healthcare legislation will bar the government from using its huge purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. That's basically the same deal George W. Bush struck in getting the Medicare drug benefit, and it's proven a bonanza for the drug industry. A continuation will be an even larger bonanza, given all the Boomers who will be enrolling in Medicare over the next decade. And it will be a gold mine if the deal extends to Medicaid, which will be expanded under most versions of the healthcare bills now emerging from Congress, and to any public option that might be included. (We don't know how far the deal extends beyond Medicare because its details haven't been made public.)

Questions:

  • Is there any reason to think that this "deal" could not be repealed by later legislative amendments? If not, then this is certainly no reason to withdraw support for the reform proposal overall. We knew it would be flawed in exactly this sort of way; the important thing is to start changing the basic structure of how healthcare is managed in the US.
  • Does anyone have links for either the LA Times article or the White House confirmation?</let>



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