Baucus Bill Sticks To Pharma Deal That Supposedly Wasn't Struck

Baucus Bill Sticks To Pharma Deal That Supposedly Wasn't Struck

The bill unveiled by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has been blasted as a major giveaway to insurance companies. But the even bigger winners are the drug makers.

That's because the Baucus bill matches up, nearly to the letter, with the secret deal that he, the White House and Big Pharma struck over the summer -- a deal the various parties roundly denied had been struck when it went public.

In August, the Huffington Post published a memo that outlined exactly what each side was going to do for the other. And Big Pharma was getting a lot more than they were giving up.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America senior vice president Ken Johnson said that the outline "is simply not accurate." White House spokesman Reid Cherlin concurred: "This memo isn't accurate and does not reflect the agreement with the drug companies."

But now that the bill is out, let's fact check those denials.

1) The memo said that PhRMA would "(a)gree to increase of Medicaid rebate from 15.1 - 23.1%".

The finance bill, on page 56, increases the Medicaid rebates for patented drugs from 15.1 to 23.1 percent.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/18/baucus-bill-sticks-to-pha_n_290639.html

Pure and Simple--the whole thing is a give away to the Health Industry.

Call it Republican Lite.

I suppose Baucus had to write the bill this way in order
to possibly gain votes from our Righties(DLC and Blue Dogs)

secret deal?

Do you even know what you are criticizing?



Baucus' bill sucks, but there is no need to try to spin the parts that work as something nefarious.

From the HuffPo piece:



The health insurers should pay more, and he is taxing medical manufacturing to offset this.