Guaranteed Healthcare

In June, 2009, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the drug industry’s trade group, followed up on its offer to help finance expanded health coverage within health care reform. PhRMA’s CEO, Billy Tauzin, was very familiar with politics and the drug industry. The former Republican turned Democrat Congressman from Louisiana had played a leading role as chairman of a House committee in design and passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization (MMA) Act of 2003. That bill turned the new prescription drug benefit over to the private sector and prohibited the government from negotiating drug prices as the Veterans Administration does so effectively. Tauzin then used the revolving door between government, industry and K Street to become CEO of PhRMA and a top lobbyist in Washington, D.C. with a reported salary in the range of $2 million a year. He continued to lobby against price controls of drugs or importation of drugs from Canada or other countries. (Lueck, S. Tauzin is named top lobbyist for pharmaceuticals industry. Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2004: A4)

History tells us that societal blind spots are common throughout the centuries from one society, culture or continent to another. An example in the late 1700s involves the first cancer hospital in the world. It was established in Reims, France, but was forced to leave the city in 1779 because of the public’s fear of contagion — most people then believed that cancer was spread by parasites.

Market theorists have been telling us for years that the competitive marketplace will keep prices under control, as well as fix problems of access and quality of health care.  This statement by senior fellows of the Hoover Institution in 2006 reflects market ideology which has framed health care policy for three decades:

“Greater reliance on individual choice and free markets are the solutions to what ails our health care system . . . A handful of policy changes that harness the power of markets for health services have the potential to give patients and their physicians more control over health-care choices, create more health insurance options, lower health costs, reduce the number of uninsured persons— and give workers a pay increase to boot.”

Conservatives in government, free market stakeholders, and their
lobbyists won a big one last week. Even after the House gave
overwhelming bipartisan support to the Medicare Improvements for
Patients and Providers Act (HR. 6331) by a vote of 355-59 (including
129 Republican votes), the Senate fell two votes short of the 60 votes
needed to overcome a presidential veto. Presidential candidate Obama
voted in favor of the bill; McCain was a no-show. The bill would have
cancelled a physician pay cut of 10.6 percent, reduced overpayments to
private Medicare plans, improved coverage of mental health and
preventive services under Medicare, and added consumer protections for
enrollees in private plans. President Bush planned to veto the
legislation because of payment reductions to private plans and the
improved benefits, claiming that they would “reduce access, benefits
and choices for many of the 2.25 million enrollees in Private Fee for
Service (PFFS) plans. Robert Hayes, President of the Medicare Rights
Center, called this “a craven submission to the insurance industry”.