Has the Washington Post sold out to pharmaceutical industry? (William Chirolas)

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William Chirolas -- World News Trust

Jan 18, 2007 -- The Washington Post has run a few editorials and articles about the Democrats' proposed new Medicare drug bill. They have not discussed the drug company lobbyist influence on Capitol Hill. Does anyone else tire of corporate Democratic Party types retiring to lobbyist jobs that help screw up our lives?

Former Louisiana Senator John Breaux is now a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry, having proved his qualification for that job by being the fellow David Broder and the Washington Post editorial board praised for his willingness to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. He may be the reason the Democrats did not design their new drug bill to have Medicare offer its own drug plan (with a list of drugs -- a Formulary -- that would require drug manufacturers to provide a major price discount if they want their drugs included.), telling the Democratic leadership that the pharmaceutical industry owned too many Congress members to get such legislation passed.

It has been reported that before taking control of the House last week, the Democratic leaders briefly considered proposing a new government-run prescription drug program as a way to reduce seniors' drug costs, but backed off out of fear the pharmaceutical industry could stall anything other than a simple change. Sounds like former Senator Breaux did a great job for the pharmaceutical industry, unnoticed by the Washington Post.

Perhaps the Post sold out to the pharmaceutical industry for the advertising revenue? Folks like Breaux do not explain why the Washington Post tells partial-truth lies about the Medicare Drug Plan, saying "fully 3,000 of the 4,300 medicines covered by Medicare are unavailable under the veterans' program," but not noting that the 1,300 drugs on the VA formulary account for the vast majority of prescriptions, perhaps 90 percent, filled by people on Medicare. The rarely prescribed not-on-the-VA formulary drugs are still available to veterans as long as they can get their doctor to explain why they need the drug in question. So the WP's "unavailable under the veterans' program" is not quite true.

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1. Silly. The newsroom doesn't know what the ads are