Last week, an article in the New York Times laid out the background details of the deal between the White House and the pharmaceutical industry — or at least its representative in Washington, former congressman Billy Tauzin. In short, the drug companies promised $80 billion in “savings” and the White House promised not to go after more. (And, as a bonus, or maybe just a lucky coincidence, the pharmaceutical industry plans to run $150 million in ads supporting of health care reform and has not actively fought the “public option” desired by the White House.)
“We were assured: ‘We need somebody to come in first. If you come in first, you will have a rock-solid deal,’ ” Billy Tauzin, the former Republican House member from Louisiana who now leads the pharmaceutical trade group, said Wednesday. “Who is ever going to go into a deal with the White House again if they don’t keep their word? You are just going to duke it out instead.”
So, is it a “rock-solid deal?” Here is what President Obama said yesterday in New Hampshire:
Now, in terms of savings for you as a Medicare recipient, the biggest one is on prescription drugs, because the prescription drug companies have already said that they would be willing to put up $80 billion in rebates for prescription drugs as part of a health care reform package.
Now, we may be able to get even more than that. But think about it. When the prescription drug plan was passed, Medicare Part D, they decided they weren’t going to negotiate with the drug companies for the cheapest available price on drugs. And as a consequence, seniors are way over-paying — there’s that big doughnut hole that forces them to go out of pocket. You say you take a lot of medications; that means that doughnut hole is always something that’s looming out there for you. If we can cut that doughnut hole in half, that’s money directly out of your pocket. And that’s one of the reasons that AARP is so supportive, because they see this as a way of potentially saving seniors a lot of money on prescription drugs.
Maybe not so “rock-solid?”
UPDATE: Jake Tapper looked at the same issue this morning, before I did. He comes to the same conclusion and adds that a PHRMA spokesman says Obama’s language “clearly it creates a little teeth-gnashing” among their members. (H/T Rich Lowry).
