A Doctor Delivers Bad News--today's LA Times.

[Craig234]

38. price negotiating and the bill

Actually, the issue is not that Congress did not pass a law allowing price negotiation. No law is needed for that.

What the Republicans did, and why the Medicare Part D drug bill was Bush's #2 domestic priority after tax cuts to reward the Republicans' biggest donor industry, bit pharma, was to put language in the bill PROHIBITING negotiating drug prices.

To pass the bill, they appointed a Republican Congressman in charge of passing it. It had that prohibition that paid big pharma hundreds of billions more tax dollars, full list price for drugs.

Even some Republicans balked at how corrupt that was, and the bill failed. For the first time in US history as far as I know, the leaders simply extended the vote window all night, and walked the floor to change votes.

They offered 'incentives' and threats. One Congressman said he was told if he switched his vote, his son, who war running for office, would get $100,000 and party backing, and if he didn't, his son would be blacklisted. He changed his vote then recanted the story.

After several hours all night, they got about four people to switch and the bill passed.

The government employee in charge of estimating the cost of the program IIRC said he had been threated he'd be fired if he released the numbers.

Weeks after the bill passed, the Congressman who had led it quit Congress and was made the heads of big pharma lobbying for $2 million per year.