IT'S NOT THAT I'M BREAKING PROMISES, JUST THAT THEY WERE UNNECESSARY!:

Obama gives powerful drug lobby a seat at healthcare table: The pharmaceutical industry, once condemned by the president as a source of healthcare problems, has become a White House partner. (Tom Hamburger, August 4, 2009, LA Times)

In an interview, Tauzin said he carefully negotiated his agreements with the White House, offering the $80-billion discount program in return for assurances that there would be no government price-setting in Medicare Part D, the drug program for seniors.

It was important, he said, to block the threat of Medicare price negotiations, which he called tantamount to price-setting and a threat to the industry. In addition, Tauzin said the industry asked the administration not to allow the import of cheaper drugs because of safety concerns.

Linda Douglass, a White House spokeswoman, said that when drug company executives brought up the import plan, they were told that the administration believed that health reform would reduce drug prices so significantly that the legislation once backed by Obama would "not be necessary."

It's far too early to tell whether the pharmaceutical industry's decision to back Obama's health initiative will pay off.

"Since Obama came into office, the drug industry has received everything it wants, domestic and foreign," said James Love, who leads an international nonprofit promoting low-cost distribution of drugs to fight the world's most devastating diseases.

"Yes, the drug companies are getting tremendous sweetheart deals" from Obama, said Lawrence Jacobs, a University of Minnesota political scientist who studies the history of health reform and other major social and economic changes.