A White House Email as PhRMA Deal Reported Confirmed
13 August 2009 6:28 pm by Taylor Marsh
Steve Benen has already highlighted a portion of yesterday’s press briefing that also caught my attention, but which in the context of the White House viral email campaign, as the White House PhRMA deal breaks wide, is even more interesting to draw out.
JAKE TAPPER: A couple questions. I don’t know if you think it’s unfair to say, but it occurs to me that if the President finds himself at a town hall meeting telling the American people that he does not want to set up a panel to kill their grandparents, that perhaps there, at some point, the President has lost control of the message. And I’m wondering if you — if what you’ve seen in the last few weeks is one of the reasons why it was so important to the President earlier this year to pass health care reform in the House and Senate before the August recess. Is everything that’s going on right now what you feared would happen?
To answer Jakes question, it’s obvious that the Obama machine was blindsided by the virulent opposition to health care now assaulting lawmakers across the country, but also Obama’s poll numbers.
They’ve finally realized it, but now they’ve got double trouble.
Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post seemingly breaks the PhRMA story wide open today, complete with art.
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.”
So, today we get a viral email filled with bullet points, the magic breakdown of 8 in each section.
The mind reels.
After watching what happened to Hillarycare, why wasn’t the Obama White House prepared with a bullet point presentation, email, or at least something showing what Pres. Obama wanted to accomplish on health care? A presidential wish list if nothing else. A simple list of what the Administration wanted to accomplish that lawmakers could have had in their hands to at least show some of the goals. The only answer I can come up with is that Obama wanted Congress to do it and he’s paying for not aggressively getting involved from the start. That is, until it came to PhRMA.
Stunningly, the Obama administration never saw it coming, preferring to play bipartisan footsies while making deals, and Democrats in Congress who’d been there before thought an Obama presidency would automatically make for smoother sailing.
Otherwise Pelosi would never have allowed the end-of-life counseling in the bill, even as courageous as it was, because it fueled the most angry reaction yet. Amnesia setting in on just how involved seniors are in politics, especially when it concerns their lives. This one provision alone pushed Obama into explaining instead of selling, and if you’re explaining away a negative talking point you’ve already lost.
Today Chuck Grassley announced the end-of-life provisions would be dropped. Who knew?
What a mess.
