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