Health Reform in Limbo, Top Drug Lobbyist Quits

[cory777]

Source: NYTimes

Published: Thursday, 11 Feb 2010 | 10:09 PM ET
By: Duff Wilson and Davod Kirkpatrick
The New York Times

Billy Tauzin, the former Louisiana congressman, is resigning as president of the drug industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America amid internal disputes over its pact with the White House to trade political support for favorable terms in the proposed health care overhaul.

As the industry’s top lobbyist, Mr. Tauzin brokered the deal with the White House and Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate finance committee, last summer to limit the drug industry’s total costs under the proposed health care overhaul to $80 billion over 10 years.

Mr. Tauzin’s departure is the latest unexpected fallout of the Republican upset in the Massachusetts Senate race, which abruptly transformed the health care overhaul from a near-inevitability to a daunting cause.

Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/35359213

[DJ13]

1. Deals off, now about drug reimportation.......

......oh, and a real public option.......

[tomm2thumbs]

2. exactly - we are starting with a blank sheet of paper as well - for the reconciliation bill, that is

two sides can play that sh*t

[ohiodemocratic]

3. PhRMA President Tauzin to Resign

Source: Wall Street Journal

2-11-10

The pharmaceutical industry's top lobbyist has decided to resign after taking criticism for his support of the White House's now-teetering plan to overhaul health care.

Billy Tauzin, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, calculated that an overhaul was likely to happen and it was better to work with Democrats, people familiar with his thinking said. But his position grew shakier after Democrats' loss in a U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts endangered the legislation's chances.

His resignation is effective June 30, PhRMA said in a statement late Thursday.

Mr. Tauzin, a former congressman from Louisiana, took the PhRMA job in January 2005 and was one of the highest-paid industry representatives in Washington with an annual salary of about $2 million.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703382904575060120849661894.html

[nightrain]

4. knr. I wonder if he'd be welcomed back in the White House. Does

the Congress --> lobbyist door swing back to White House?

[Cleita]

5. I would love to read the whole article but there is no way I will

subscribe to any of Ruppert's fish wrappers. Perhaps you could give us a synopsis?

[Art_from_Ark]

6. Tauzin was no stranger to the Conservative Idiots list

such as No. 114, where he plays second fiddle to Tom Delay

http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/03/114.html

[Suji to Seoul]

7. Billy-Boy did what any good Blue Dog does. . .switch parties for their own interests

wrap themselves in their mothers, sell their non-existant souls and become Republican conservative assholes.

Notice it's these southern Blue Dogs that switch parties (the exception being Joe Lieberman, who is just a worthless pile of dog vomit, who is from da North).

[Joe Bacon]

8. Billy the Pimp is set for life

I just think of the millions of lives he's ruined and the people he's killed by jacking up the prices of drugs.

Karma WILL bite that worthless motherfather in the ass.

[musette_sf]

9. I'm a little pimp with my hair slicked back

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wDVWX_NxGM&feature=related

[Smashcut]

10. "its pact with the White House to trade political support for favorable terms"

Reading that phrase makes me feel ill

[No Elephants]

11. Yep. I can't believe you are the only one on the thread so far to focus on that.

It sure looked like deals were being made, but this is the first time I know of that someone spelled out what the deal was.

Doesn't that come really close to the quid pro quo test of corruption of a public official?


And, this guy got fired when? When it looked like "health care" "reform" might not pass after all because Coakley did not make it.

Coakley's big donors? Big health. And Brown hammered that during his campaign, too.

Hmmm. Maybe this guy got fired bc he bet all his campaign contribution money on Coakley and against Brown and he picked the wrong horse?

In any case, I have a feeling there is more to this story than appears in the article.

[cutlassmama]

12. no doubt it will all come out in trickles in the weeks to come

[Smashcut]

15. ...

"Doesn't that come really close to the quid pro quo test of corruption of a public official?"

Thank you. It's almost like we've forgotten about that whole concept (that this kind of "deal-making" is gentrified bribery and influence-peddling, i.e. corruption of the highest order) because it's become so normal. Just a regular part of doing government business.

I think you may be right about big insurance/phrma betting on Coakley. Although it could just be that Tauzin's big phrma bosses figure either way their job is done. Even if the current bill gets passed they win. If no bill gets passed, they still win.

[snagglepuss]

23. +1

[defendandprotect]

13. Does this mean Obama's deal with Tauzin is null and void--?????

[Blue_Tires]

14. i never liked the fact that a "deal" had to be made in the first place

it's strange to read about congresses of long ago that actually used to REGULATE monopolies instead of letting them write their own laws...

[ShockediSay]

16. GOOD!!! Now let us purchase from Canada ! nt

[24601]

17. One Grand Deal Too Many Costs Lobbyist His Job

Source: Luke Sharrett/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — After about two dozen years in Congress, Representative Billy Tauzin of Louisiana was after bigger game — the giant, 200-pound whitetail deer that run through the area of south Texas that hunters call the Golden Triangle.

So in 2003 Mr. Tauzin, then chairman of the powerful energy and commerce committee, made a deal. Though still on a modest Congressional salary, he paid more than $1 million for a 1,500-acre ranch there. And he invited a dozen friends — mostly executives and lobbyists with interests before his committee — to cover its mortgage by paying him dues as members of a new hunting club. It did business as Cajun Creek L.L.C., based in the Baton Rouge office of a lobbyist who was a member.

Now, seven years later, Mr. Tauzin’s friends say, it is to his Texas ranch that Mr. Tauzin, 66, will retreat, to contemplate the apparent collapse of the grandest in a career of fearless deals — a pact to trade the drug industry’s political support for favorable terms under President Obama’s proposed health care overhaul.

Mr. Tauzin is leaving his $2 million-a-year job as the top lobbyist for the drug industry amid complaints from drug makers that he bargained away their profits too cheaply, spent too much in his $150 million advertising campaign to sell the overhaul and miscalculated in his assessment that the passage of the legislation was all but inevitable.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/health/policy/13pharm.html?th&emc=th

---

So now that Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) judges the bill won't necessarily, they are retrenching for their $$$,$$$,$$$,$$$.cc

Tauzin was a Dem that, after the 1994 election, defected to maintain his power in the House.

Couldn't happen to a nicer Quisling....

[heli]

18. He's crying all the way to the bank

[UpInArms]

19. here's the 'graph in wikipedia that says it all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Tauzin

Wilbert Joseph Tauzin II (born June 14, 1943), usually known as Billy Tauzin, American lobbyist and politician of Cajun descent, is President and CEO of PhRMA, a pharmaceutical company lobby group. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1980 to 2005, representing Louisiana's 3rd congressional district.

[24601]

22. Did you mean the "Graft" in wiki....? n/t :-)

[Bonhomme Richard]

20. The Pharms realized it was cheaper to pay off the........

Congressman directly. It has worked so well and now they have the teabaggers in their corner for nothing. Why spend any money on he middleman. Just goes to show the greed. They had it all going their way as it was but that isn't enough

[ShockediSay]

21. It's the Lobbyists, stupid. Big K St is what makes Big Government

what it is

Too Big, Too Corrupt and Too many so-called 'elected representatives' spending most of their time with and most money of our taxpayers on,
lobbyists, beholden to lobbyists and wannabe lobbyists like Millionaire Tauzin.

Because of this, and because we still have the largest national economy in the world, our America is THE most corrupt, dwarfing the corruption money that passes hands in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan put together.

Wouldn't it be great if we could eliminate the tax deductions we give the corporatists for their lobbying expenses? - - bringing down our deficit?

But with the lobbyists, the corporatists, the Federalist Society and their judicial political hacks - - Fascists by definition, we will never again enjoy democracy.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

24. This article could have been called "Portrait of a Congressional Sleazebag"

It casually recounts his questionable conflicts of interests and ethical lapses. Oh well, ho hum. Notice how there wasn never any accountability for him?

I am actually not believing this story one whit. He negotiated a great deal for Pharma that was no deal at all for the American public. The 80 billion was over 10 years and was a drop in the bucket compared to what real regulation, price negotiation,and/or drug re-importation would have cost the industry. And notice how the bill contained no: real regulation, price negotiation or drug importation.

I don't know what the real underlying story is. Perhaps due to the recent Supreme Court decision, all the big corporations will simply sink their money into media campaigns against those who don't knuckle under to their demands. Maybe ANY negotiation/lobbying is now passe.

[jxnmsdemguy65]

25. Tauzin is the whore of Babylon mentioned in the book of Revelation

[vegiegals]

26. so, who were the whores in the WH who made the deal??