Big Pharma double dealing? Say it ain’t so.
by digby
This piece at Mother Jones details the strange relationship with one of Obamacare’s allegedly enthusiastic health industry supporters and a right wing think tank called the Competitive Enterprise Institute dedicated to destroying Obamacare:
This was the deal Big Pharma cut during the legislative battle over Obamacare: The pharmaceutical companies agreed to support the law and accept about $80 billion in cost-cutting measures over the next decade, and the White House granted the industry lucrative concessions to protect its profit margins. These industry-favoring measures include provisions preventing the government from negotiating lower drug prices for Medicare and Medicaid and blocking Americans from importing cheaper prescription drugs from abroad. Those concessions were costly to taxpayers and consumers, but they were part of the grand bargain hammered out between the White House and Big Pharma. This accord ensured the industry would use its formidable lobbying clout to pass Obamacare—not destroy it.
At the time, Ron Pollack, the executive director of the health care reform advocacy group Families USA, worked closely with PhRMA on jointly-sponsored ads supporting Obamacare. He finds it odd that PhRMA would subsequently contribute to a conservative think tank that’s trying to undo the law. “The bottom line is that PhRMA was a strong supporter for the Affordable Care Act, and put a lot of money on the line for advertising for the Affordable Care Act,” he says.
“The Competitive Enterprise Institute accepts donations from a diverse group of individuals, businesses, and foundations who support our research and educational activities,” says a spokeswoman. “CEI’s research programs and positions are developed independently and are not influenced by the views of donors.”
PhRMA declined to say whether will continue to fund CEI. “As part of our mission,” says the trade group’s spokesman Robert Zirkelbach, “PhRMA often makes grants or charitable contributions to organizations that share PhRMA’s goals of improving the quality of patients’ lives, increasing the availability of life-saving and life-enhancing medical treatments, and supporting the discovery of new treatments and cures by pharmaceutical and biotechnology research companies.”
PhRMA couldn’t possibly be playing both sides, could it? No, they wouldn’t do that. I recall a White House spokesperson assuring the press on a conference call that the hospitals wanted to help because they were good Americans. I’m sure the drug companies are too. So never mind.
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