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FireDogLake - - A Big Win For Pharma, Health Insurance Companies, Obama, Reid, Nelson, Lincoln, Lieberman; A Big Loss For The American People And the Progressive Movement
December 24, 2009 -- Today’s vote in the Senate to pass their health care reform bill was a big win for many people. It was a big win for the drug companies, the biologics industry, the hospital companies, and the for-profit health insurance corporations. They will all get billions of government dollars piled on to their ledgers, and and millions of Americans now forced to buy their products. The vote was also a huge win for the lobbyists who just saw their profits jump thanks to this great opportunity to show their clients just how powerful their hold on Washington really is.
This vote was also a political win. It was a big deal for politicians–like Barack Obama, Max Baucus, Rahm Emanuel, and Harry Reid–who cared more about putting up a “W” on the scoreboard than about the policy. It was also a big day for senators like Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, and Joe Lieberman. The incredibly broken rules of the Senate gave them an absurd amount of anti-constitutional power that allowed them to hold reform hostage for pork and industry favors. -more-
Editorial Comment
The solution to correcting the disaster that is health care in the United States, is to simply allow every American citizen to buy into medicare. It was US Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) in the 2008 Democratic debates who proposed that solution. The media industry quickly assailed him as a candidate that could not win. In the 2004 Democratic debates it was Howard Dean who was similarly castigated by the media wonks for suggesting meaningful health care reform. The one and only problem with this suggestion, however, is that it will not get any Washington politicians millions of dollars in bribe money from the health/medical insurance industry.
To hell with euphemisms - corporate money being stuffed in
the pockets of crooked politicians is bribery. Plain and simple. They're not "campaign contributions" and aren't we all sick and tired of cowardly euphemisms intended to put lipstick on that pig. Corporate bribes are about corruption. It makes a mockery of our tattered, Constitutionally limited government and what little is left of our democracy. Even more disgusting is that while crooked politicians fill their pockets with cash Americans needlessly die. And if you're not in that 5% catagory with the wealthy elite you're not safe from premature death caused by an unholy alliance of our government and corporate greed.
On average 45,000 Americans die annually due to government and medical industry collusion. That is 10 times more American citizens than have died in the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. More people die in the United States, per day, than the US military kills in the same period - around the world. The same pompose sonsabitches of our central government use a non-event on an airliner to further erode Constitutional liberties because 300 people could have died, while blithely ignoring 366 preventable deaths every 3 days in the United States. If this scenario was a tevee movie nobody would watch it for its insane if not disgusting plot.
World history is replete with the fall of empires. The decadence that fortells the misery and suffering of so many previous civilizations are lessons for all civil societies. The corruption of government officials as they turn a blind eye on their own people in order to further their own enrichment is just one measure of the tyrrany to come. The welfare of citizens of falling empires rightly suffer for having done little or nothing to prevent the horrors that their governments imposed on innocents of other nations. One could argue it is a natural consequence.
Until the 2000 U. S. election cycle Central and South American peoples had an expression that went something like: "The only reason the United States has never had a coup d'etat is because it doesn't have a US Embassy." We learned that the Supreme Court of the United States could substutute itself for that embassy. Still, far too many people continue to ignore the obvious as the opportunity to correct the looming chaos ebbs, but that is the natural order of things.
"...experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." - The Declaration of Independence
And so shall it be...again.
A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week.
The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return.
It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government's leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada -- and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements.
In exchange, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) agreed to cut $80 billion in projected costs to taxpayers and senior citizens over ten years. Or, as the memo says: "Commitment of up to $80 billion, but not more than $80 billion."
The deal, as outlined in the memo:
Commitment of up to $80 billion, but not more than $80 billion.
1. Agree to increase of Medicaid rebate from 15.1 - 23.1% ($34 billion)
2. Agree to get FOBs done (but no agreement on details -- express disagreement on data exclusivity which both sides say does not affect the score of the legislation.) ($9 billion)
3. Sell drugs to patients in the donut hole at 50% discount ($25 billion)
This totals $68 billion
4. Companies will be assessed a tax or fee that will score at $12 billion. There was no agreement as to how or on what this tax/fee will be based.
Total: $80 billion
In exchange for these items, the White House agreed to:
1. Oppose importation
2. Oppose rebates in Medicare Part D
3. Oppose repeal of non-interference
4. Oppose opening Medicare Part B -more-