Pharma Deal Confirmed?; $12 Million TV Ad Campaign Backing Obama's Proposals Launched; Obama Administration "Pushes Back Against the Misconceptions"

by bartleby the scrivener | Ryan Grim at HuffPost got hold of a memorandum showing that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobbyists made exactly the sort of deal they've been denying ever occurred.   Just so you know, "[r]epresentatives from both the White House and PhRMA, shown the outline, adamantly denied that it reflected reality. PhRMA senior vice president Ken Johnson said that the outline "is simply not accurate." "This memo isn't accurate and does not reflect the agreement with the drug companies," said White House spokesman Reid Cherlin."  (HuffPost)

So what does this putative memo say?  Pretty much everything Grim previously alleged.

It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government's leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada -- and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements.

In exchange, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) agreed to cut $80 billion in projected costs to taxpayers and senior citizens over ten years. Or, as the memo says: "Commitment of up to $80 billion, but not more than $80 billion."

As to the putative deal, Matt Yglesias has a different take on it.  As Jonathan Martin points out, PhRMA is now pouring money into a massive ad campaign intended to promote Obama's health care plan.  Yglesias says: 

The fact of the matter is that the country is likely to pay a price for moving in the direction of health reform that gets buy-in from these kind of interest groups. But that’s a price relative to a theoretical universe in which it’s possible to pass a better plan with PhRMA spending hundreds of millions in negative ads rather than kicking in money to help finance pro-reform ads. In the real world of politics, this looks to me like dealmaking that’s paying off. 

I'm inclined to agree with Taylor Marsh:  "What a mess."

[I]t’s obvious that the Obama machine was blindsided by the virulent opposition to health care now assaulting lawmakers across the country, but also Obama’s poll numbers.... 

After watching what happened to Hillarycare, why wasn’t the Obama White House prepared with a bullet point presentation, email, or at least something showing what Pres. Obama wanted to accomplish on health care? A presidential wish list if nothing else. A simple list of what the Administration wanted to accomplish that lawmakers could have had in their hands to at least show some of the goals. The only answer I can come up with is that Obama wanted Congress to do it and he’s paying for not aggressively getting involved from the start. That is, until it came to PhRMA.

Stunningly, the Obama administration never saw it coming, preferring to play bipartisan footsies while making deals, and Democrats in Congress who’d been there before thought an Obama presidency would automatically make for smoother sailing....

Meanwhile, Obama is on a mission to "push back against the misconceptions." (WaPo)

In an e-mail to supporters posted on the White House Web site Thursday morning, David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama, said critics of the administration's health-care proposals were spreading "all sorts of lies and distortions" through "viral e-mails" that were flying around unchecked. He urged supporters to help start "a chain e-mail of our own" to rebut what Obama has called "these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that's actually been proposed."

Separately, a coalition of groups backing Obama's proposals launched a $12 million TV ad campaign Thursday, pitching health insurance reform in states where centrist Democratic House members or senators are under pressure on the issue. The campaign is intended to serve as a counterweight to critics who have shouted down Democratic lawmakers at town hall meetings, encounters that have received heavy news coverage. (WaPo)

And then of course, Obama himself is taking to the town hall trail.  

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