I'm really taken with the word FAIL these days. I can't imagine why:
The pharmaceutical industry agreed Saturday to spend $80 billion over the next decade improving drug benefits for seniors on Medicare and defraying the cost of President Barack Obama's health care legislation, capping secretive negotiations involving key lawmakers and the White House.
And please understand that by "secretive" we mean, like, totally open and transparent!
"This new coverage means affordable prices on prescription drugs when Medicare benefits don't cover the cost of prescriptions," Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement announcing the accord.
The deal marked a major triumph for Baucus as well as the administration. Obama praised the deal.
"The agreement by pharmaceutical companies to contribute to the health reform effort comes on the heels of the landmark pledge many health industry leaders made to me last month, when they offered to do their part to reduce health spending $2 trillion over the next decade," Obama said. "We are at a turning point in America's journey toward health care reform."
Matchless rhetoric, and I couldn't agree more! A toothless voluntary "agreement" is, like, totally equivalent to legislation, especially when my health is involved! I'm gonna go out and bet the farm right away!!
[pounds head on desk.]
[pounds head on desk.]
[pounds head on desk.]
Especially when that ol' public option is gonna keep 'em honest!
[pounds head on desk.]
[pounds head on desk.]
[pounds head on desk.]
I assume somebody over in OMB is working out a way to get these fake voluntary numbers into the CBO scoring? That's going to be very important!!
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No wonder we can't see the White House guest logs.
We wouldn't know who he cuts these deals with!
Now that is a very acute comment
And I'm sure you're right. Plus, if you keep the ponies in the White House at all times, there's nothing visible to clean up.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
And everybody and their grandmother
will be able to figure out that there was no reason the pharmaceutical industry could not have made drugs more affordable before now...and that the only reason they are "agreeing" to do it now must be because they see the gravy train, loaded with millions more individuals requiring coverage - who are not Medicare-eligible - chugging into the station.
I get really tired of being treated like I am too stupid to understand what is happening and why.
Top Big Pharma Paychecks
Top 15 Big Pharma Paychecks of 2008
1. Bill Weldon - Johnson &... - $29.4M
2. Miles White - Abbott La... - $28.3M
3. Bernard Poussot - Wyeth - $25M
4. Jim Cornelius - Bristol... - $25M
5. Richard Clark - Merck - $19.9M
6. Robert Parkinson - Baxt... - $16M
7. David Vasella - Novartis - $15.1M
8. Jeffrey Kindler - Pfizer - $14.8M
9. Frank Baldino - Cephalon - $14.5M
10. John Lechleiter - Eli Lilly - $13M
11. Fred Hassan - Schering-... $12.9M
12. Robert Coury - Mylan $12.5M
13. Werner Wenning - Bayer - $4.8M
14. David Brennan - AstraZeneca - $4.7M
15. Severin Schwan - Roche - $4.5M
Honorable mentions :
Gerard Le Fur - Sanofi-... - $3.3M
Andrew Witty - GlaxoSmi... - $2.7M
WE NEED SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE NOW!
Source?
Love the numbers, thanks, but need a link to the source.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Source for the Top 15 Big Pharma Paychecks of 2008
Here's the source: Top 15 Big Pharma Paychecks of 2008 by Maureen Martino and Calisha Myers, May 11, 2009
http://www.fiercepharma.com/special-repo...
Thanls!
If we don't keep the record straight, who will? Our famously free press?
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Robert Reich: The Healthcare War is Now Official
Reich wrote this Thursday, June 11th, so we should know the answer posed in his first paragraph in the near future. Obama's actions during the first week don't look that promising.
how much lbj in obama?
zilch.
They lost
They lost the ideological war. Americans have said, en-masse, now, that they want true health care and to hell with anything less (i.e. cost savings, "reform", etc...). So, since they lost the ideological war, they are now going to try and legislate and cut deals to make this all go away. Yes, it's war, and one we certainly could win, but one that makes me nervous when the folks at the highest levels of government not only stopped advocating for us, but are actively advocating against us.
More than the health care, itself, this will be a true test of our leadership and our influence. If they fail, it won't be because they didn't have the mandate to enact change, it will have been because they actively took that mandate and used it to turn back to bludgeon to death those that gave it to them.
But, we've always been at war with Eastasia...
I swear he lies like he breathes,
"The agreement by pharmaceutical companies to contribute to the health reform effort comes on the heels of the landmark pledge many health industry leaders made to me last month, when they offered to do their part to reduce health spending $2 trillion over the next decade," Obama said.
Didn't the industry people come out and disagree with that assertion, like two days later? I remember this clearly, but I don't remember who wrote it.
Plus so basically, Obama and PHaRMA* are arguing that we have to write a new law, to fix the holes in the screwed up law, that we already wrote? Here's a plan, why don't we scrap the old law, and do it right, instead of creating another boondogle for the health industry tyrants who hold this nation's citizens hostage.
*While we're all about writing new laws, how bout you do something to ensure that we stop spending our health care dollars on advertising the power drugs the industry cooks up, especially as our bodies are becoming acclimated to the power prescriptions on the market today, that we are losing our natural abilities to heal ourselves.
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
- Sir William Drummond
Great catch, aeryl, you're right
See here. Yes, they walked it right back.
I knew it was bullshit, but I didn't realize it was 11-dimensional bullshit. Damn.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
TAKE ACTION
Here are some things you can do that will help:
1. Please sign Sen. Bernie Sanders' Petition to Congress supporting single-payer healthcare. http://sanders.senate.gov/petitions/inde...
2. Send an email to President Obama and ask him to support and work for Single-Payer Healthcare Reform:
http://healthreform.gov/communityreports...
3. Take more action for Single-Payer reform https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:28803.2122217397/rid:31dc2a66052589ee092f9d691388aee9
4. Thursday, June 25th---Rally for Healthcare Reform, Washington, DC
Join thousands in Washington that day to demand real health reform. Come
Great American Sickout. http://www.1payer.net/action-alerts/wash... If you can't be there, take some time to call your Senators and Representatives that day.
5. SAVE THE DATE: We are standing up for single-payer health care on July 30th! Join us in Washington, DC on July 30th for Medicare's 44th Birthday Rally and Lobby Day for Single-Payer Healthcare. http://www.healthcare-now.org/campaigns/...
6. INSIST that HR 676 be sent to the Congressional Budget Office for Scoring: http://www.1payer.net/campaigns/efax-sen...
Only a single-payer approach to healthcare reform will end the inhumanity of our failed healthcare insurance system, where profits are more important than patients’ health, and where people die because of it.
The outcome of this fight will affect Americans for years to come!