It appears to me like the President’s approach to building support is going to take the legs out from under one of the most important aspects of health reform cost control:
via White House Affirms Deal on Drug Cost – NYTimes.com.
Pressed by industry lobbyists, White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion.
Drug industry lobbyists reacted with alarm this week to a House health care overhaul measure that would allow the government to negotiate drug prices and demand additional rebates from drug manufacturers.
In response, the industry successfully demanded that the White House explicitly acknowledge for the first time that it had committed to protect drug makers from bearing further costs in the overhaul. The Obama administration had never spelled out the details of the agreement.
If I’m not mistaken drug costs have been one of the primary causes behind general inflation in the health care sector. Without effective cost controls we’re going to end up boosting instead of reducing the cost curve over time.
