Despite the sweet deal arranged between the pharmaceutical
industry and Obama administration (cut reimbursements by $80
billion in return for making everyone buy insurance, inflating
the overall demand for pills), many congressional Democrats are
not prepared to go along. Only Republican votes on the
Senate Finance Committee prevented approval of an amendment
imposing much larger price cuts.
Reports
the New York Times:
President Obama
scored a big victory on Thursday as the Senate Finance
Committee rejected a proposal to require pharmaceutical
companies to give bigger discounts to Medicare
on drugs dispensed to older Americans with low incomes.
The victory came at the expense of senators in Mr. Obama's own
party who had championed the proposal. The vote, in effect,
upheld a deal reached in June by the White House and the drug
industry, which saw the agreement as a possible way to avoid
more onerous requirements that might be imposed by Congress.
The proposal, an amendment by Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of
Florida, would have required drug makers to provide Medicare
with discounts in the form of rebates totaling more than $100
billion over 10 years.
Some of the money would have been used to close a gap in
Medicare coverage of prescription drugs. In 2007, more than
eight million Medicare beneficiaries fell into the gap, known
as the doughnut hole.
Three Democratic senators - Max Baucus of
Montana, Thomas R.
Carper of Delaware and Robert
Menendez of New Jersey - joined all the Republicans on the
panel in defeating the amendment by a vote of 13 to 10.
Pharmaceutical price controls are a bad thing. But the
drugmakers are supporting legislation to politicize the health
care received by all Americans in order to make a few extra
bucks. So if they are willing to have government run more
of our lives, why shouldn't government run more of their
operations too? If they can work to wreck the U.S. health
care system for profit, why shouldn't they suffer from the crash
impact as well?
Next time when the pharmaceutical industry comes calling,
Republican lawmakers should close their doors to the pill
manufacturers and abstain from the fight. Let
the industry go back to its
newfound pro-regulation buddies for relief. If the
result is price controls, so be it. Maybe the industry will
learn a valuable lesson for the next political battle.
