Huffington Magazine Issue 12-13 | Page 46

MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES Sen. Joseph Lieberman (ICT) speaks to reporters about the health care reform bill as Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) looks on. HUFFINGTON 09.09.12 10 years towards health care reform (a figure they lowered to $80 billion) in exchange for an expanded pool of customers. The administration also promised not to use its purchasing power to lower prescription drug prices, and to oppose the re-importation of cheaper drugs from Canada and elsewhere, key PhRMA priorities. Emails obtained by GOP investigators on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and provided to Huffington show just how closely the White House and PhRMA were working together. In August 2009, after The Huffington Post obtained a memo detailing the bargain on health care, officials at THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION aide. “He had built up this vaunted [grassroots machine], they had spent years building this thing, and it wasn’t released on health care, for instance, his top priority.” Meanwhile, the White House cut deals with some of health care reform’s traditional opponents in order to try to buy their support — or at least dull their criticisms. They assured private insurers that the final reform bill would have a large private-sector component. In exchange, AHIP, the insurance industry’s lobbying arm, kept their reservations quiet, albeit while secretly funnelling money to the Chamber of Commerce for its antihealth care reform ad campaign. PhRMA, the lobbying group of the pharmaceutical industry, agreed to chip in $100 billion over