I've been trying to peel back some of the spin layers and figure out whether there really was a secret deal to between the White House and PhRMA that would have perpetually protected drug makers from the rapacious reach of Congressional Democrats. The notion that an iron-clad, inked deal existed is a convenient bit of history for the pharmaceutical industry and "drafts" of the "deal" are circulating everywhere.
For Democrats disillusioned with the administration, the "deal" was the last straw. Dan Froomkin, writing at the Huffington Post, calls it "the Obama White House's first really major credibility crisis." He accused White House press secretary Robert Gibbs of "lying" because Gibbs denied there was a deal, albeit in "conflicting" ways, and the "evidence for [a deal] is considerable."
CBS News's Sheryl Attkisson last week revealed a key point, which is that PhRMA agrees that the White House never agreed to drop its support for pursuing Medicare-negotiated drug pricing and drug reimportation.
However, it's also clear that the White House was keen on negotiating with PhRMA -- and that the negotiations involved discussions about ways to limit the ramifications that Congress' health care bills would have on the companies.
So when is a deal really a deal?
The White House agreed, along with Sen. Max Baucus, to not _push_ for the inclusion of Medicare-bulk drug pricing as part of the health care bill itself. (A White House spokesman, Dan Pfeiffer, has admitted this.)
Further, the White House told PhRMA it would not urge House members to rewrite the part of the Medicare Part D expansion that made 6 million Medicaid recipients eligible for the new Medicare benefit. It's not clear how well Baucus briefed other members of the Finance Committee, who denied knowledge of a "deal." Indeed, Baucus could have only been speaking for himself as chairman; he would not use his powers to persuade other Democrats to adopt anti-PhRMA positions as part of the health are bill.
The White House's denials about a deal were broad. Senior Adviser David Axelrod told members of Congress that there was no deal to change the White House's position on these issues. At the same time, Jim Messina, the White House deputy chief of staff (and former Baucus CoS) who was the point person for the negotiations, made it clear to senators that the president had authorized him to try and secure PhRMA's support for the overall legislation, and that Baucus had agreed (two months ago) to a tactical retreat: the Finance Committee wouldn't pursue these issues RIGHT NOW. But it was made clear to PhRMA that, post-health care reform, the White House was no longer bound by the deal. A PhRMA source confirms that PhRMA understood this -- and understood as early as 6/22, when news of the deal was first announced.
The House was largely cut out of these negotiations. White House
officials have since reassured House Democrats that while it cannot
publicly support these measures in a House-Senate conference, it will
not insist on them -- if PhRMA gets the short end of the stick in those
deals, the White House won't veto legislation because of it.
From
the White House's perspective, getting PhRMA to commit publicly to cut
$80 billion was the goal, and it was a success. It is much easier for
the White House to slowly back away from its part of the deal than for
PhRMA to back away from its promises.
That leads me to the reason for those "draft" memos that are circulating:
Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post obtained from
a health care lobbyist a July 7 memorandum that listed what PhRMA had
agreed to -- and what it was getting in return. Grim says that the
person who prepared the memo was directly involved in the negotiations.
Grim's a good reporter, and I have no reason to disbelieve him.
These
memos aren't fabricated. The White House believes that they were drafts
that PhRMA circulated internally in order to pacify its consistents,
who were worried that PhRMA had committed them to profit cuts without
getting anything back in return. My PhRMA source doesn't deny it
(won't confirm it either), other than to say that the memos don't
reflect the deal that PhRMA understands to be in effect today.
In
June, PhRMA CEO Billy Tauzin did not realize that the Republican base
would be as angry as it is in August, and now has every reason to make
it appear as if the White House conceded more than it did.
Incidentally,
PhRMA believes that a health care bill will pass Congress. That's why
they've sort of agreed with the White House denials of the deal. They
don't want to anger House Democrats into writing more punitive
provisions.
No matter what actually happened in this deal, the fact that it exists is a problem. Smacks of Cheney's secret energy meetings. This lack of transparency and possible double dealing is one of the things we hate about private companies. It negates the purpose of government.
If by "smacks of," you mean that the Obama administration went to great lengths to cover up the fact that these meetings happened, and then when they finally came to light refused to release the names of the participants or the topics they discussed after (it seems) the same people involved in the discussions callously manipulated their industry's market, then I'd agree.
But that didn't happen, as we're actually having this debate about what was promised and to whom it was promised. We never saw any internal memos from the energy companies, and we certainly didn't have any energy industry reps telling us what went on in the secret meetings.
Also, the WH is not trying to ram through a secretly beneficial deal for big Pharma. Instead, the WH extorted Pharma for $80 billion in savings and got a free PR campaign thrown in as an extra (which I'm all for, by the way- their intransigence over the last couple of decades is clearly belied by the fact that they agreed to this HUGE concession). Pharma knows change is coming and is trying desperately to hang on to their huge profits without being thoroughly demonized by the best political orator of the modern era. They should continue to be on their best behavior or risk the wrath of the bully pulpit.
Slag has it down, no matter if it was naive it is still secrecy we must govern without.
Another thing that seems to be kept secret, whether on purpose or not, is the issue of mental health care and whether or not the bills being debated include mental health care in their text.
Yes, change is coming, but it will too much of what we don't want (regulation, $$$$) and not enough of what we do need (actual healthcare).
I'm going to need some mental healthcare myself when whatever crosses the President's desk in the near/distant future is finally signed and done for (and hopefully before I'm done for).
Obama's goal was to speak negatively about pharmaceutical companies in order to bully the industry into coming to him to meet his under-the-table, Chicago style demands for money. He wanted to tell the American public that he had "found savings" which will make his healthcare bill cost less. This had made the White House look like a third-world banana republic. Unfortunately, the White House, and most democrats, do not understand that the pharmaceutical industry is one of the United States few world-leading industries. And, that it takes money to research and develop drugs that save lives and lead to better qualities of life for many Americans.