Update: Sen Carper confirms quid pro quo! Is Pharma the Chamberlain of the health care wars? YES!!!: Boehner to Big Pharma: Don’t be an appeaser….
Update: Courtesy of HA, Sen Carper CONFIRMS the quid pro quo deal b/w phaRma and TOTUS for the ad buy. He is actually whining about it, apparently not grasping the IMMORALITY snd perhaps ILLEGALITY of the deal. He is upset that Baucus isn’t sticking to the right $ figure! What a maroon!
Okay Seniors, it is up to you. TOTUS promised you could buy RXs from Canada and he sold you down the river for a 150m ad buy and buy in from phaRma for reforms.
CALL YOUR CRITTERS! JUST SAY NO TO THE QUID PRO QUO!
Right on John!
In a scathing, borderline condescending, “dear colleague,” Boehner urged Tauzin to unwind PhRMA’s deal with President Barack Obama and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to support health care legislation in exchange for profit protection under rules established in the controversial 2003 prescription-drug bill….
…Drugmakers agreed to find tens of billions in savings in order to trim the federal government’s prescription-drug tab under Medicare in exchange for other protections, like allowing the industry to preserve a lucrative rebate structure under Medicare Part D and the White House’s agreement to oppose any move to force the government import lower-priced drugs from Canada. The industry also committed to spend $150 million to advertise in support of health care reform – although it has not yet endorsed any of the four bills to pass out of committee.
Boehner’s letter, which is excerpted after the jump, speaks for itself. But the central thrust is that PhRMA cut a bad deal, in large part, because Democrats will eventually renege, Boehner argues. It reads like a jilted lover laughing at his ex-girlfriend after she gets dumped by the replacement boyfriend. Check it out.
These are EXCERPTS of the letter:
“Dear Billy,
“Appeasement rarely works as a conflict resolution strategy. This is as true in the arena of policymaking as it is in schoolyards across America. When a bully asks for your lunch money, you may have no choice but to fork it over. But cutting a deal with the bully is a different story, particularly if the “deal” means helping him steal others’ money as the price of protecting your own.
“The simple truth is, two wrongs don’t make a right. And the short-sighted health care deal PhRMA struck with the Obama Administration at your urging provides confirmation of this time-tested maxim on an epic and tragic scale.
“The “bully” in this case is Big Government. At your behest, PhRMA has chosen to accommodate a Washington takeover of health care at the expense of the American people in hopes of securing favorable treatment and future profits. It’s a short-sighted bargain that leaves your own customers and employees behind. And it now has all the markings of a deal gone sour.
Moderate in the Middle 