Good for Senator Dorgan. Good, good good for him.
The 'secret' deal that Obama and Rahm made behind closed doors with Big Pharma was a crappy deal to begin with, not be mention the fact that respectfully, President Obama did not have the right to make that deal in the first place.
Consider this: Big Pharma makes somewhere around $350 billion dollars a year by charging Americans more money for their drugs than any other nation in the world. In return for the 'deal' that was made with them, they threw in this 'nickel' in the bucket for what they pull in annually:
According to the deal the re-importation would not be part of comprehensive health care reform. And if the measure does save $50 billion, that will come from Big Pharma revenue and take it above the $80 billion in cuts it agreed to over ten years.
$80 billion in cuts over a period of ten years is nothing compared to what these blood sucking drug companies are pulling in on an annual basis. In addition, Americans would not be able to 'negotiate' cheaper drugs from Canada and other countries at often one quarter of the cost we pay here in our country.
You do the math: The Drug companies make $350 billion a year (or more annually for the next ten years) and they throw us a bone for a cut of $80 billion over ten years? While charging the Americans more for their drugs than any other nation? Sorry, that sucks the big one.
That is what I call a monumental shitty deal all the way around. And other Senators are feeling the same way:
North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan, a member of Democratic leadership, isn't a party to that bargain. "Senator Dorgan intends to offer an amendment to the health reform bill and his expectation is that it will be one of the first amendments considered," his spokesman Justin Kitsch told HuffPost in an e-mail. "Prescription drug importation is an immediate way to put downward pressure on health care costs. It has bipartisan support, and has been endorsed by groups such as the National Federation of Independent Businesses and AARP." Those individual fights, however, might be bound for the Senate floor sooner than PhRMA thought. Senators, meanwhile, will face the question of whether to buck a deal they didn't agree to in the first place.
"This is not the way that I would like to be treated," Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said during a Finance Committee debate over an amendment that would have broken the PhRMA deal. "Whether you like PhRMA or not, we have a deal."
Nonsense, said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y), insisting that he and his colleagues were not bound by the agreement. "That's a value judgment," Schumer said. "This is going to be a constant debate when we come to this bill, and I don't disagree that this is a difficult balance, but how often do we side with one of the interest groups, and how often do we side with the average citizens?"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Well too fucking bad Sen. Carper, because 'that's not the way American's want to be treated either - having 'behind the closed door meetings' about something as huge as what American are going to pay for their drugs in perpetuity without the benefit of 'negotiating' said drugs on the open international market - like Canadians do - was a deal that should not have been made in the first place. It reeks of complete capitulation and favoritism to the 'special interests' that are throwing millions of dollars into the pockets of Congress and ignores the real needs of Americans who are dying, TODAY, because the cannot afford their prescriptions.
Call Sen. Byron Dorgan today or tomorrow and let him know that you support his efforts to make certain Americans get 'the deal' they deserve, the same deal that every other country in the world gets, except ours.
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Thanks.