January 13, 2007
WHO HAS ANY FAITH IN THEM?:
Bad-Faith Negotiation: What's missing from the Democrats' new bill on bargaining prescription drug prices. (Robert B. Reich, 01.12.07, American Prospect)
House Democrats are pushing a bill to require Medicare to negotiate drug prices. So far, so good. But in what appears to be a bow to the political clout of Big Pharma, the bill does not authorize Medicare to drop from its approved list drugs on which manufacturers fail to offer good deals. [...]The current Democratic bill is calculated to make everyone happy. It allows Democrats to tell seniors and the all-important AARP that they're forcing Medicare to negotiate with drug companies. And it also allows Democrats to turn around and tell Big Pharma not to worry because the negotiations won't have any real teeth in them. Their drugs will still be approved, regardless of price.
But the bill won't make anyone happy. It won't deliver seniors real drug discounts. And Big Pharma will still fight it. Drug manufacturers see any move toward negotiations, even one as innocuous as this, as a slippery slope toward government price controls. And they're intent on using their considerable clout on Capitol Hill to stop any such bill.
Even if the bill makes it to the Senate, new Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus is unenthusiastic about Medicare negotiating drug prices, and has twice opposed similar measures. In the unlikely event the bill makes it to the president's desk, he'll almost certainly veto it. And the Democrats don't have the votes to override the veto.
Only someone as bright as Mr. Reich can ever have believed Democrats were going to do anything the next two years. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 13, 2007 12:21 PM
OJ:
Were you thinking stirrings of disillusionment would set in so unbelievably early, however? I thought they'd be on a high until at least March or so, like the GOP in 1994. It's funny that they don't even get that much.
The GOP made it til they re-opened government -- in late December 1995 (?) -- but they were always going to be able to achieve a fair bit.
This Democrat majority never had a hope in Hell of doing anything meaningful, which is why they didn't even bother running on any ideas for things to do.
Posted by: oj at January 13, 2007 1:39 PMThe GOP had a 40 year backlog of things to do. The Dems are the same guys who were there in '92-94, and they already have acheived all their objectives by getting elected. Well, all but one: getting reelected next year.
And that's where their long-term strategy of avoiding anything that looks like a long-term plan will hurt. It's much easier to vote "against" than it is to vote "for", (as last year demonstrated) and now they will be the recipients of any "against" votes. In effect '94 was a response to Bush the Elder getting tossed in '92 and the Dems doing nothing with that mandate but "more of the same". Good chance we'll see the same thing in '008. (Clinton survived '96 in part because he realized he had to be seen "doing something", and the gov't shutdowns gave him that opportunity. But he still got less than 50%.)
Raoul, thanks for pointing out that Clinton would have lost even to Dole had the little general stayed out of it in '96. How quickly we forget those bad old days.
Posted by: erp at January 14, 2007 8:04 PMTrackBack
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The House approved legislation Friday requiring the government to negotiate lower prescription drug [Read More]