A Little Awkward

Dana Milbank of the WaPo demonstrates another example of the discrepancy between campaign rhetoric and actual policy formulation in the Obama administration:

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama vowed to take on the drug industry by allowing Americans to import cheaper prescription medicine. "We'll tell the pharmaceutical companies 'thanks, but no, thanks' for the overpriced drugs -- drugs that cost twice as much here as they do in Europe and Canada," he said back then.

On Tuesday, the matter came to the Senate floor -- and President Obama forgot the "no, thanks" part. Siding with the pharmaceutical lobby, the administration successfully fought against the very idea Obama had championed.

"It's got to be a little awkward," said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.).

It's even more awkward for millions of Americans who are forced to pay up to 10 times the prices Canadians and Europeans pay for identical medication, often produced in the same facilities by the same manufacturers, simply because the U.S. government refuses to rein in drug prices.

Those favoring cheaper prescriptions amassed an impressive ideological coalition, from socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to conservative Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). But they were no match for industry-friendly senators backed by the administration, who on Tuesday night easily voted down "reimportation," as it is called.

No surprise here: Lawmakers, and the White House, are addicted to drug money. The industry has pumped upwards of $130 million into federal elections over the past decade and is now among the top 10 donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. At the same time, the White House needed the industry to spend its millions of dollars in advertising money on support of the health-care legislation, not against it.

Okay, so when will our President really stand up against the big health care and financial corporations as he said he would?  We're waiting.

That's why the drug industry has been fighting for a decade against congressional efforts to allow reimportation. Obama co-sponsored one such proposal in the Senate. He also said during his presidential campaign that he wanted to "let Medicare negotiate for lower prices" for drugs. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, when he was in Congress, also championed reimportation. Yet now, after their successful battle against it, the two are expected to fight off a similar legislative effort to allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices.

Even before the vote came, it had become clear that President Obama's aides had the votes to kill the proposal Senator Obama once co-sponsored. This, said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), "contributes to the enormous cynicism on the part of the American people about the way we do business here." To Dorgan, he pledged: "I will be by his side as we go back and back and back again on this issue until justice and fairness is done and we defeat the special interests of the pharmaceutical industry which have taken over the White House and will take over this vote."

Dorgan, on the verge of losing another reimportation battle, raised his voice as he pleaded with colleagues. "The pharmaceutical industry has a lot of clout. I know that," he said. "I hope the American people have the ability to expect some clout on their behalf in the chamber of the United States Senate."

To compromise when absolutely necessary is one thing.  That is pragmatic governing.  To give in almost from the beginning, as the Administration has with both the bankers and the health care companies, is another.  It is getting just a little too obvious what's going on here.  Or am I just being too cynical?

This is too much 'politics as usual' and not 'change we can believe in.'  I'm really sick of saying that, but isn't it true?