It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
We are closer than ever to historic health insurance reform – reform that will extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans, provide security and stability to those who have health insurance, and shift power from insurance companies to consumers.
A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week.
The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return.
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.
If a package passes Congress, the pharmaceutical industry has pledged $80 billion in cost savings over 10 years to help pay for it. For his part, Tauzin said he had not only received the White House pledge to forswear Medicare drug price bargaining, but also a separate promise not to pursue another proposal Obama supported during the campaign: importing cheaper drugs from Canada or Europe. Both proposals could cost the industry billions, undermine its ability to develop new cures and, in the case of imports, possibly compromise safety, industry officials contend.
Much of the bargaining took place in July at a meeting in the Roosevelt Room, just off the Oval Office, a person familiar with the discussions said. In attendance were Tauzin, several industry chief executives -- including those from Abbott Laboratories, Merck and Pfizer -- White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and White House aides.
White House officials acknowledge discussing the importation question with Tauzin but had no comment on whether there was an agreement to block future Medicare price negotiations.
Yet everyone agrees that drug companies -- Washington's leading source of lobbyist money -- now have "a seat at the table" at the White House and on Capitol Hill as healthcare legislation works its way through Congress. If nothing else, a popular president who six months ago criticized drug companies for greed now praises their work on behalf of the public good.
Also, in May 2006, "two Washington lobbyists registered to work on behalf of Astellas Pharma, a Japanese-owned drug company which also has offices[10] in Illinois [to] 'Introduce legislation to temporarily suspend customs duties for the importation of a pharmaceutical ingredient,' they wrote on their lobbying forms. Less than three weeks later, the men had earned their $20,000 fee, thanks to Obama. On May 26, he introduced S. 3155[11], a bill specifically exempting Astellas' key ingredient from tariff payments. The bill cost the federal government more than $1 million in lost revenue, according to government estimates," Rood wrote.[6]
A review of campaign finance records turned up no record of contributions from Nufarm to Obama. Astellas Pharma employees gave $1,100 to Obama's campaign in recent months, the documents show.
Originally posted by Erasurehead
What will you do when the federal government forces you to buy health insurance?
Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
Originally posted by Erasurehead
What will you do when the federal government forces you to buy health insurance?
I'm already buying it, so... I'll do nothing.
To me, it's no different than requiring us to buy auto insurance. Or homeowners insurance. If there was a way to guarantee that people would never use health care, then I can see your beef, but until there's a way to prevent a person from using the health care system, then requiring them to either buy it or pay a fee seems logical to me.
Fight against the law for everyone to have health insurance if anyone wishes, but be aware of the consequences of such support and action to your fellow citizens. No man is an island in a civlised society.
Originally posted by ldyserenity
The problem with this plan is that even the lowest wage earners will be required by that same law to have insurance regardless that they can't even live off their wages as is...and they will be fined just the same, and probably will recieve crap care for teh money they're shelling out, and they'll be homeless, because they have to file just like every other working american.