Obama, The Drug Companies, Pesky Facts, Etc.

Addressing spob’s complaint in the previous thread I see.
Can’t say I blame you as these concerns seem legitimate.
I will note that nothing in the supposed ‘deal’ with the drugmakers precludes him working on IP reform which was the subject of his quote.
And while the AARP hasn’t endorsed any particular bill, they are unambiguosly out in favor of health-care reform and indeed have put a fair amount of effort themselves in lie-swatting.

Funny that you don’t point out that in Grim’s reporting the White House AND the Big Pharma rep both deny that the memo is accurate at all. You also don’t point out that his reporting also included the caveat that the House bill already bucked any such agreement by including negotiations and importation

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As for the AARP here is a lot more context including their praise for the House tri committee bill
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http://mediamatters.org/research/200908120029

re: AARP…
According to the Washington Post, (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/22/AR2009062200349.html) the AARP did support Obama’s drug company sellout deal.
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perhaps some enterprising reporter will ask AARP what they thought the terms of the deal were. (Here’s a hint — according to the articles, a massive chunk of the $80 in ‘savings’ wasn’t savings to the government — instead, the drug companies agreed to charge half price for its “branded” drugs to people who fell in the “donut hole” of prescription drug coverage. This may not represent any real savings, especially if seniors switched to generic drugs once they entered the “donut hole”)
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re: the surgeons objections — what’s interesting is that Obama’s information seems to be coming directly from the parasites at AHIP, and its chief prostitute Karen Ignani. Specifically, the study cited in this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/health/policy/12insure.html) in the Times yesterday. The question is…why is Obama using propaganda provided by AHIP?
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But as for your lede…
You missed the man point, which is that, according to the memo, the deal Obama made with the drug companies ensured that at least one class of “branded” drugs (follow-on biologicals) was off limits in terms of getting generic to the market more quickly.

PD…
As noted in my comment, the memo specifically refers to efforts to bring generics to market for one class of branded drugs (FOBs, or “follow-on biologicals”)

sgwhite, you are right. i updated post with WH denial. should have mentioned it originally.

PhRMA’s Johnson cast doubts on the provenance of the outline. “The memo, as described, is simply not accurate,” he said in a statement. “Anyone could have written it. Unless it comes from our board of directors, it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. Clearly, someone is trying to short circuit our efforts to try and make health care reform a reality this year. That’s not going to happen. Too much is at stake for both patients and the U.S. economy. Our new ads supporting health care reform are starting this week, and we are redoubling our efforts to drive awareness of why this issue is so important to America’s future.”
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Johnson added that “no outside lobbyists — not a single one — were ever involved in our discussions with the Senate Finance Committee or the White House so someone is blowing smoke.”

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If the two people involved in a deal, both big pharma and the White House, both say the memo isn’t accurate, is that really a “confirmation”? Im just sayin

Obama doesn’t have too many friends on reform. Whatever it takes, right?

http://www.political-buzz.com/

SG, yeah, surely it is just as important that PhrMa says that the outline simply isn’t true (as well as the WH). Given that PhrMa (Tauzin) hasn’t been shy in saying what they thought the deal was previously why would they deny this this time? Note that it is a pharmaceutical lobbyist that has produced the “memo” – unnamed, and unnamed lobby firm for whom he works. Given the recent news about letters being forged by coal company lobbying firms, why does this one have any greater credibility?

Isn’t this relevant, from the Huffpo article:

PhRMA’s Johnson cast doubts on the provenance of the outline. “The memo, as described, is simply not accurate,” he said in a statement. “Anyone could have written it. Unless it comes from our board of directors, it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. Clearly, someone is trying to short circuit our efforts to try and make health care reform a reality this year. That’s not going to happen. Too much is at stake for both patients and the U.S. economy. Our new ads supporting health care reform are starting this week, and we are redoubling our efforts to drive awareness of why this issue is so important to America’s future.”

MS: ” .. acquired a memo from a health industry lobbyist that appears to confirm ..”

MS, can you do the homework
(for which you are generously paid [and we wonder why])
then get back to us with facts and statements on which we can base a discussion? Please?

Hey Michael… this from the HuffPo story…

The White House meeting took place on July 7th, as first reported that evening in the Wall Street Journal. Also on the same day, a health care lobbyist following the talks was provided the outline of the deal by a person inside the negotiations. That outline had been floating around K Street before being obtained by the Huffington Post. In order to learn more about its origin, HuffPost agreed not to reveal the name of the lobbyist who originally received it.

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now, it seems to me that if this memo “has been floating around K Street” it will be pretty easy for an entreprising reporter to get a copy — and reveal who the “lobbyist” in question is.
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Do you think that the likeliest source is AARP? After all, they did endorse the deal when it was announced on July 22. This suggests that they were fully aware of the terms of the deal — and this memo would be one way to communicate that to the AARP board which would have had to approve of any such deal.
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as for the White House denial — i’d not put too much faith in it. Its a highly specific denial, and the memo reflects the results of negotiations on July 7 (which did not become public for two weeks after) when the deal was hashed out — but such deals are generally tweaked (for instance, published reports about the $80 million said that $30 million in savings would come from the ‘donut hole’ provisions — the memo says $25 million. This is enough of a difference to make the denial technically true, while being substantively false.
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When reading such denials, its important to read what isn’t said. No one is claiming that the memo is not based on what happened at the meeting — although that’s why they want you to infer from the denials, they won’t go that far.

Matt: ” .. Obama doesn’t have too many friends on reform ..
What does “too many” mean?
Do you suppose that he is a president to friends only – say, those who voted for him?

Big PhRMA is blowing smoke with their denials.
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Read the explanation for the origins of the memo — someone involved in the negotiations wrote the memo for a lobbyist who was not part of those negotiations. The PhRMA denial would have you believe that they are the only people on the planet capable of writing such a memo — this kind of obfuscation suggests that the memo is an accurate description of the deal that was struck on July 7th, and that’s really all that matters.
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If the White House, or PhRMA, or the Finance Committee want to produce their own “memo of understanding” from the meeting (or better yet, the actual minutes of the meeting!), then we’ll have something to compare it to.
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But until the parasites and their White House and Congressional enablers stop making backroom deals, or at least come clean about how we’ve all been sold out by our elected officials, there is no reason to question the accuracy of this memo.
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(can anyone imagine most of the people here accepting similar denials if we were talking about the Bush White House?)

Pluk, I think the point he was making was that unless the memo was official, ie on the board paper, it doesn’t mean anything. Huffpo hasn’t produced the memo, hasn’t named the lobbyist so why believe it?
Also, why would Phrma deny it? If that was the deal, why wouldn’t they shout it from the rooftops? either the deal becomes law then great, or there is no healthcare reform which is also great for them!

Michael, this is the third time this week that you have run to post some scurrilious gossip that has been shown to be untrue within hours. Don’t you do any actual work as a reporter? Or is your job just to reprint every little item that comes across your desk? On this “political reporting” bit, it appears that you are nothing but a tool. It is not the best use of your writing skills. You are destroying your credibility.

I just want to point out that it is the lefty blogs who are pursuing this story, which, whether or not it turns out to be true, I take as a good sign. Can you imagine Faux News pushing to find out whether or not Karl Rove was really involved in those AG firings? Course not, and it didn’t happen. It’s good that Huff Post, TPM, etc. are digging on this issue because it adds a layer of accountability that’s very much needed.

home…
I think the point he was making was that unless the memo was official, ie on the board paper, it doesn’t mean anything
the question isn’t whether its an “official” document, the question is whether its an accurate document. No claim was made that it was an “official” document, the claim being made is that it was created by someone who was part of the negotiations.
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Huffpo hasn’t produced the memo, hasn’t named the lobbyist so why believe it?
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Because Huffpo has no reason to lie, for one thing. Anonymity in this case was necessary as a condition of confirming the authenticity of the document. Finally, if we were talking about Cheney and energy companies, would you be as skeptical of this document?
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Also, why would Phrma deny it? If that was the deal, why wouldn’t they shout it from the rooftops?
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turn it around. Why won’t PhRMA release the minutes of the meeting and/or the “memo of understanding” and/or other documents associated with the agreement that was reached? If this document is a fraud, why not release the real thing? I mean, its something that was negotiated by our elected officials, why is it being withheld from us?

James, I’ll ask you the same question I asked home…
If this was a document about a deal made between Cheney and the oil companies, would you be this skeptical?
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Especially given the evidence that confirms is authenticity?
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I mean, Obama supported drug importation during the campaign — but has dropped that. He supported negotiation of Medicare drug prices — but he’s dropped that. And why isn’t the White House backing the rebates — $63 BILLION in higher drug costs because in 2006 Medicare took over the drug costs for poor seniors once covered by Medicaid. (In other words, had they stayed in Medicaid, the government would have paid $63 Billion less.)
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The source of these “facts” about Obama and a deal with Pharma and other health industry creatures–”Hospital industry lobbyists, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of alienating the White House.” Nuff said. Now you don’t suppose they would really want to alienate the White House, do you? Gasp!

pluk,
I hesitate to even respond to your incessant and tiring anti-Obama harangues given that you’ve become no better than a bifer-deather, but yes. I’d probably think/say/respond that a leaked Cheney memo. would probably be too good to be true

It is difficult to credit any of the players when it comes to telling the truth. Even the White House has been caught up in the games played in Washington. Perhaps the trouble lies in the fact that we have five bills in space, five hundred “journalists” who rely on “sources” whose name they cannot give because….fill in your choice… and people who go to town halls relying on talking points provided by parties pitching their own truths, half truths, lies and distortions.

I don’t know how this will end, but anyone with half a brain would have anticipated the slash and burn strategy and tactics of the Republicans and vested interests.

Every post by KT, MS and JK, with the odd one by JNS and AS merely confirm the total incoherence that pervades the health reform debate. I know what stands in the way. I don’t see how the way can be cleared.

bitterpill8:

Who are the vested interests of which you speak? For the past 20 years liberals have argued “HC coverage for all”. Well 91% of the people are covered and 84% arer happy with their health care. Now the previous tact by liberals is under fire so now its Health insurance reform (tested better in focus groups). If there are slash and burned strategies the Republicans ave learned them at the feet of the masters- Democrats. Every prior discussion of Social Security or Medicare (both in serious financial trouble) by Republicans was immediately met with Democrat response of Republicans killing Grandma and stealing their retirement money. If they are doing this the Democrats are being hoisted by their own petard.

for those who are demanding to see the memo itself, Grim has posted it (without identifying information) on the article itself that MS linked to in the post.
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freeinpa: if you are unable to identify the vested interests in Washington for whom the health care status quo is “normal” then I can’t help you. Look at the ads and who sponsors them; looks at the talking points put out by the insurers, drug manufacturers, hospital owners, labour, etc etc.

My point is simply this: the people who want change by and large have no insurance or have lost cover because of unemployement, change of employment, etc.

Common sense says, to me, that in the richest country in the world (subject to correction because China is now our banker) to have from 32 to 46 million people uninsured is pitiful. I know anyone can turn up at Emergency and get treatment. You and I pay for that. What a way to provide HC for our people.

By the way, Liberals have not been in power for the last 20 years. They may argue all they want for something but the Republicans never dealt with health care. They were too busy trying to privatise Social Security. Thank the Lord they failed; or Wall Street would have junked that.

[...] at Time/CNN’s Swampland, for instance  (http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/08/13/obama-the-drug-companies-pesky-facts-etc/) Michael Scherer wrote about the memo Huffington had acquired without even mentioning that the [...]

[...] we got word that, working with lobbyists from the pharmaceutical industry, the administration had made huge concessions to drug companies, and, now, word is they’re getting ready to cave on the so called “public” [...]