Not so very long ago, the left was screeching about “Big Pharma”, one of their favorite bogyman. Notice how utterly silent they are about trotting that one out right now? Maybe because they have been told to shut up about that since their master has cut a deal with that bogyman.
But the drug industry has also gotten something in return for its support. As reported Thursday in the New York Times, the White House agreed privately not to push for anything beyond the $80 billion in savings that the industry promised over the next 10 years. “The President encouraged this approach,” deputy chief of Staff Jim Messina told the Times. He wanted to bring all the parties to the table to discuss health insurance reform.”
That puts the White House on the other side from House Democrats, who are trying to subject the drug industry to the kind of direct price negotiations with Medicare that Emanuel once championed. The White House also agreed, sources say, not to get behind a provision in the House bill that would eliminate a good deal that the industry got from another provision in the Medicare prescription drug program. The law shifted six million eligible beneficiaries from Medicaid-which pays lower prices for drugs-to the Medicare drug plan. In the first two years of the program alone, that shift of beneficiaries from one program to the other produced an estimated $3.7 billion “windfall” for the industry, according to a report last year by the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
House Democrats are none too pleased by the White House pact with the drug industry. “We were never part of that deal. We are not bound by that deal,” says Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of three panels that wrote the House bill. “It was not particularly a deal I would have made.”
Whine and screech all you want about people who are really, really not happy with what you are trying to do to this country. Your best buddy in the White House will sell you out in a heartbeat while you get the heat.
Welcome to Omerica. You really might want to consider listening to your constituents rather than to the guy who can’t be trusted with your best interests. Because you will be out of a job if you ignore the former in favor of the latter guy – who has already sold you cheap on this issue.
We now have real paid organizers promising to produce bodies to confront the citizenry showing up at townhall meetings to loudly voice their disapproval.
The nation’s largest federation of labor organizations has promised to directly engage with boisterous conservative protesters at Democratic town halls during the August recess.
In a memo sent out on Thursday, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney outlined the blueprint for how the union conglomerate would step up recess activities on health care reform and other topics pertinent to the labor community. The document makes clear that Obama allies view the town hall forums as ground zero of the health care debate. It also uses the specter of the infamous 2000 recount “Brooks Brothers” protest to rally its members to the administration’s side.
What could go wrong with this scenario? First, who says they’re all “boisterous conservative protesters?” This is about union members going to an event expressly to confront those who are voicing a dissenting opinion and quelling that. Talk about setting themselves up for a huge “fail”. Talk about setting themselves up for a huge backlash.
Here’s a note to all the good, honest people who have gone out to protest and plan to do so in the near future: Bring video cameras. Relentlessly tape every union member who “confronts” you. Then post it on YouTube.
And press charges if they cross the line.
Continue to push back against the lies. Continue to push back against the agenda. Continue to express your opinions on your God-given rights. Do not yield to threats, thuggery or false characterizations of what you are doing.
But bring those video cameras and resist the implied threats. Resist thuggery. Push back now while we still can.
The press corps has noticed the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the House health bill increases the deficit by $239 billion over the next decade. But government-run health care won’t turn into a pumpkin after a decade. The underreported news is the new spending that will continue to increase well beyond the 10-year period that CBO examines, and that this blowout will overwhelm even the House Democrats’ huge tax increases, Medicare spending cuts and other “pay fors.”
In a July 26 letter, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf notes that the net costs of new spending will increase at more than 8% per year between 2019 and 2029, while new revenue would only grow at about 5%. “In sum,” he writes, “relative to current law, the proposal would probably generate substantial increases in federal budget deficits during the decade beyond the current 10-year budget window.” (The House bill has changed somewhat in the meantime, but not enough to alter these numbers much.)
The nearby chart shows this Grand Canyon between spending and revenue, including CBO’s long-term predictions. While these are obviously very coarse estimates, there’s also a projection of a $65 billion deficit in the 10th year-and “deficit neutrality in the 10th year is . . . the best proxy for what will happen in the second decade.”
This is madness. The Democrats pushing this abomination will turn your children and grandchildren into drones, their hard work merely feeding the maw of the endlessly hungry government. This is not America, folks. This is not freedom. At best, this is sefdom.
Those of you who think that the “rich” will pay for all this better get a grip on the reality of these numbers. This will be paid for by your children, regardless of how much they make – which will not be very much at all after the taxes are paid.
Start pushing back now, before it is too late. Do not let this happen.
Advice, Democrats | Gaius August 6, 2009 | 
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