House-Senate Health Care Conference Begins In Earnest Tomorrow; PhRMA Deal Targeted

[kpete]

House-Senate Health Care Conference Begins In Earnest Tomorrow; PhRMA Deal Targeted
By: David Dayen Sunday January 3, 2010 6:46 pm

Henry Waxman, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, announced at a constituent meeting today that he was headed to Washington tomorrow to begin discussions with Senate leaders and the White House, aimed at reconciling health care legislation to find a final bill which can pass both chambers of Congress. “The differences on the health bill will be hard to reconcile,” Waxman said to about 175 people at the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club. “But that’s our job.”

Discussions are beginning early on the health care bill, although the House is not returning to session until January 12, and the Senate not until a week later. This will not be a traditional conference committee, Waxman said, because the motions to select and instruct conferees in the Senate “would need 60 votes all over again.” Instead, whatever agreements made could be packaged in an amendment to the bills passed by the House and Senate.

While many observers expect the Senate bill to remain largely intact following the conference negotiations, Waxman vowed to fight hard on at least one issue: prescription drugs. “The President and the Senate made very poor deals with PhRMA,” Waxman said, explaining the deal whereby the drug industry offered $80 billion dollars in givebacks in exchange for their support for the overall bill. “Rahm (Emanuel) said that’s OK,” Waxman said, but he noted that under the deal, the industry would get millions of new customers and Americans would still pay far more than the rest of the industrialized world for prescription drugs.

“I have said that I am not bound by that agreement,” Waxman said, noting all the provisions in the House bill which go further than the PhRMA deal. He highlighted the “dual eligible” issue, where Republicans in the Medicare Part D benefit shifted millions eligible for prescription drugs on Medicaid and Medicare into the Part D program, giving billions of dollars in windfall profits to the industry because the Medicaid deal offers better prices for drugs. Waxman said that in the conference, where he expected the President to sit down personally, “I’m going to say, ‘Are we interested in protecting the profits of the drug companies or protecting seniors?’”

more:
http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/01/03/house-senate-health-care-conference-begins-in-earnest-tomorrow-phrma-deal-targeted/

[yourout]

1. “The differences on the health bill will be hard to reconcile,”....nah they will just give the....

Blue Dogs what ever they want and rush it to Obama.

[rwheeler31]

3. Not so fast mister.

[yourout]

4. Wish I was optimistic but I have been let down by them Dems waaayyy to many times....

to have much hope.

[bluestateguy]

2. Ideally the PhRMA deal would be killed before they had time to mobilize a campaign against the bill

If you kill the PhRMA deal and then dither for a month before a final roll call vote, you give them time to mobilize a bill-killing campaign. Trust me, you don't want to do that; they have shitloads of money; think of non-stop 24 hour smear ads, which would bring even more Vichy Democrats out of the woodwork and kill the bill, trust me.

But if you scrap the PhRMA deal and then quickly hold a roll call vote, you could blindside them before they have a chance to organize.

[mopinko]

5. oh, please. the ads are in the can.

they are ready now.

[MNDemNY]

6. Just kill this dog. It is useless.