Extortion

Did PhRMA extort the President of the United States, or did the President of the United States extort PhRMA? I think Cohn has it backwards. Wikipedia has a pretty good definition of extortion: “‘Extortion’, outwresting, or exaction is a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion.” So who obtained money, property, or services in this deal? The White House did. Obama obtained $80 billion in savings that he could herald as a major breakthrough in the still struggling effort to keep health care reform deficit neutral. He also obtained financial support for his reforms in the form of advertising to be paid for by PhRMA (and to be produced by Axelrod’s own firm). And PhRMA agreed to provide services, too, in the form of lobbying support for the president’s efforts. Extortion is usually associated with organized crime — mobsters shake down local business in exchange for protection. Obama doesn’t wear a fedora, but he does have the power of coercion and he did get the better end of this deal. Indeed, Cohn goes on to say that the government might come back for more money and concessions from PhRMA: “Besides, it’s not as if the administration and its allies can’t seek more concessions from PhRMA later on–a possibility the White House itself seemed to encourage, after the August Times report, by pointing out that the deal was only about health care reform legislation and not future acts of Congress.” So the White House is going to go back to PhRMA to get extorted again? No, of course not. The White House will be going back to squeeze a little more out of an industry that already paid for protection.