Friday, June 29, 2012
ObamaCare's Secret History - WSJ.com
In this case, it sure appears that something other than the health and welfare of Americans was paramount.
Politicians and pharmaceutical companies are a poisonous mix...
The Wall Street Journal explains all about it:
"The joint venture was forged in secret in spring 2009 amid an uneasy mix of menace and opportunism. The drug makers worried that health-care reform would revert to the liberal default of price controls and drug re-importation that Mr. Obama campaigned on, but they also understood that a new entitlement could be a windfall as taxpayers bought more of their products. The White House wanted industry financial help and knew that determined business opposition could tank the bill. Initially, the Obamateers and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus asked for $100 billion, 90% of it from mandatory 'rebates' through the Medicare prescription drug benefit like those that are imposed in Medicaid. The drug makers wheedled them down to $80 billion by offsetting cost-sharing for seniors on Medicare, in an explicit quid pro quo for protection against such rebates and re-importation. As Pfizer's then-CEO Jeff Kindler put it, 'our key deal points . . . are, to some extent, as important as the total dollars.' Mr. Kindler played a more influential role than we understood before, as the emails show."
