What’s up with Obama and Big Pharma?

Huff Po claims to be in possession of a memo documenting a secret deal between the Obama administration and the pharmaceutical lobby. 

Obviously, this angered the left.

Critics on Capitol Hill and online responded with outrage at the reports that Obama had gone behind their backs and sold the reform movement short. Furthermore, the deal seemed to be a betrayal of several promises made by then-Sen. Obama during the presidential campaign, among them that he would use the power of government to drive down the costs of drugs to Medicare and that negotiations would be conducted in the open.

So, why is the White House conducting these meetings in private. Didn’t he promise complete transparency? Here’s a theory from the Huff Po story (linked above):

Obama is walking a tightrope here. He wants to keep PhRMA from opposing the bill, and benefits by having its support, which now includes a $150 million advertising campaign. That’s a fortune in politics — more than Republican presidential candidate John McCain spent on advertising during his entire campaign — but it’s loose change in the pharmaceutical business.

Opponents of the deal with PhRMA hope that Obama is playing a multilayered game, making a deal in order to keep the drug makers in his camp for now, but planning to double-cross them in the end if he needs to in order to pass his signature initiative.

Big Pharma, however, is still comfortable. “As far as the pharmaceutical industry, PhRMA and its member companies, yes, they say a deal is a deal. We’ll see what happens,” said the health care lobbyist.

Wolf Blitzer asked Linda Douglass about whether Big Pharma’s $150 Million ad campaign is part of the secret bargain they struck with the White House. You can read a partial transcript at Power Line. Notably, Douglass didn’t really answer the question.

If you have any questions about corporatism and why big companies are willing to get into bed with the government you aren’t alone. Click here to begin your education.

For more on this check out Fausta’s Blog, which includes a great quote from Doug Ross.

That, my friends, is crony capitalism at its finest.

 This is not the free market — it is the Democrat Party distorting, twisting, perverting an industry to advance its Statist agenda. Like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the “War on Poverty”, the Democrat agenda is control.

It all sounds pretty fishy to me.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 14th, 2009 at 11:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.