Thursday, August 06, 2009
Billy Tauzin
So much for Billy the bad guy. Last year during the presidential campaign Barack Obama singled out former Democratic congressman Billy Tauzin of Louisiana for helping the pharmaceutical industry keep its drug pricing regime with Medicare as part of the prescription drug overhaul plan. In a 30-second television commercial, Obama pointed out how Tauzin left Congress and became the head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the industry’s top lobby in Washington, DC. “That’s an example of the same old game playing in Washington,” Obama pledged to voters. “I don’t want to play the game better—I want to put an end to the game plan.”
Today, however, Obama is playing ball with Tauzin and PhRMA, which spent almost $7 million on lobbying in just the first three months of 2009. The Los Angeles Times reports Tauzin has been invited to the White House half a dozen times this year to negotiate his industry’s stakes in the healthcare reform debate. PhRMA’s top man reportedly gained assurances from the president that he will not seek to overturn the same Medicare drug policy Obama criticized during the election—and that he will forsake another campaign pledge to advocate for the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada and Europe.
In return, the pharmaceutical industry has volunteered to reduce drug costs to the healthcare system by $80 billion over 10 years. Tauzin and other industry leaders have not specified how they will do this.
-David Wallechinsky
Obama Gives Powerful Drug Lobby a Seat at Healthcare Table (by Tom Hamburger, Los Angeles Times)
Health Industry Passes Financial Sector in Lobbying Race (by David Wallechinsky and Vivian Kim, AllGov)
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