Sorry, I may be naive or simply under-informed, but it seems as if the pharmos have actually agreed to $80 billion in reductions, and that the deal which was struck only set that figure as a cap. So they've secretly agreed to up to $80 billion, but no more than that.

Yep. It's been another embarrassing experience inside the Obama Casino & Whorehouse. We lost again at the Roulette Wheel of Misfortune to a bunch of phony players called lobbyists. They were pretending to be players, but it turns out they work for the Stiing Operation. Now somebody's gone and pulled our pants down again; it was funny guys about the first hundred times you did it to us.... What? Sit on the diving board and you won't dunk us? Uh.... O.K.

Just how many times are we supposed to sit on the diving board with no pants while Barry nails the bulls-eye with fast-balls? You'd think we'd get tired of coming into a house of taxpayer horrors like this but, we keep coming back into this place.

Looks like another Medicare Subpart D fiasco coming.....

Boing! Splash! Blub Blub Blub...

"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."

If the government can't negotiate prices with drug manufacturers or allow cheaper imported drugs from Canada or other countries then there can be no reduction of the projected 8 trillion dollar cost of Medicare Part D. That's what Obama said he wants to do-lower the cost of health care. But with this agreement there can be no reform.

Neither will there be a cost reduction in the health insurance industry without a public option plan to force the private insurers to lower costs.

What's the point? To keep the status quo.

I'm with NativeSon and easydoesit here.

"Sold out again. How many times in 7 months. This must be some kind of record. Pitiful. Just pitiful."

We can go back to the campaign and argue that, Well, actually, Obama never made those promises that the liberals-progressives-dreamers thought he did, but in fact it now appears that it was precisely his intent to make us think that.

I voted for the sumbitch and in my 45 years or so of faithfully showing up at the polls on election day, this was the ONLY time I voted for a Presidential winner. In Indiana no less!

I feel betrayed. I also feel that Obama is betraying the world and all Life that depends on it. He ran a campaign of empirical Enlightenment and now governs in betrayal of his own rhetoric. Was that not his intent going in? Give hope to the Idealists and then smash them into permanent ennui, as the last vestiges of Democracy are ripped away from the Commonweal like copper pipes in an abandoned foreclosed California Mansion on a Hill?

The Cognitive Dissonance here is aggravating my tendency towards manic-depression...OOOPS, bipolar disease (I guess I'm showing my age). Being on Medicare Parts A & B, so that Part B now subtracts a PREMIUM of $96.40 every month from my Social Security Check of under $1,000 a month, I guess I will work til I die or get cancer, with no chance for serious reflection. Or maybe I should quit this job and repair my own leaking roof. If the ceiling caves in, in the kitchen, egad.

Ya know, Pol Pot may have had a good point in Cambodia after he deposed Norodim Sihanouk for being an ass-kisser to the West---kill all the intellectuals. Anyone wearing glasses for starters.

I wear glasses, can't read let alone keep a job without them. Medicare doesn't cover glasses. I have really bad teeth. Medicare doesn't cover teeth. I do not have Part Duh. Former Senator Dr. Frist probably does, though he doesn't need it.

Face it, the world would be better off if Washington DC and New York ceased to exist. Flee while you can! Doesn't this "Deal on Drug Cost" by the White House just totally undermine any effort by The Congress to control Drug Costs?

I'm being literary. Am I sane now?

-30-

Barry Greene-

Your kind of awakened, from-the-gut mindful passion, like that of Sioux Rose's, is what's finally needed.

May it take hold in others and spread!

Regards.

Sweet Jesus H. Christ weeping in the fucking garden.

There is only one stakeholder, Mr. Obama: THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. All else are parasites. PERIOD. But what the hell's the point of saying that here - preaching to the choir, one assumes. To fix this place for people, which I'm perfectly aware is not the goal of the gov't, of Obama, of those goddamn churches, of the scumbag American Medical Ass'n., is going to require serious corporate carnage. You save your precious but EVIL insurance corporations and your precious but fantastically EVIL pharmaceutical corporations, you kill the people. This is not a no-brainer? The notion of the sanctity, holiness, infallibility of and general religion of corporate America is going to have to be dealt with. That's the part that truly turns my stomach - the idea that so many people in the United States can go around barking their imbecile heads off and foaming at their anti-intellectual mouths about a Jesus who would surely piss in their collective faces if he was around, while they're obediently taking it up the arse from their real deities in the boardrooms. Incredible, the level of mass delusion. And then to drive around with bumper stickers that blather about 'power of pride' and 'support the troops'.
Honest to Christ, the least enlightened country on earth, bar none.
Guess you're just not the tool for the job, are you Barack? You're either another brain-washed zombie in the service of the Puppet Bush's masters, or you don't want to risk a bullet or your precious political ass to DO THE RIGHT THING FOR THIS COUNTRY. You want us to believe you're worthy of carrying Martin Luther King's torch? THEN TAKE THE WHEEL, motherfucker, as Eddie Murphy says to Stevie Wonder in one of his stand-up routines. If you want us to believe that you're not the same as the old boss, and that you're a whole new kettle of fish, ISSUE AN EXECUTIVE ORDER AND CUT THE INSURANCE/PHARMA/AMA SONS-OF-WHORES DOWN TO SIZE. If that filthy prick Bush could spend 8 years fucking over the people of this country, and most other countries, and you're, umm.. different, then get on with the goddamn job that a majority of Americans are demanding you do: SINGLE-PAYER, *GASP* SOCIALIZED HEALTH-CARE. Save yourself from being another in a long line of hypocrites, earn yourself a place ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY, and tell the country that if they think they can get away with A SOCIALIZED MILITARY AND SOCIALIZED FINANCIAL CABALS, then they're going to have to bloody well get used to socialized health care, OR THEY CAN KISS YOUR HARVARD-EDUCATED BLACK ASS.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't six or seven MILLION people need to march up to the front door of the White House and demand an answer to what is admittedly a silly, naive question: WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU WORKIN' FOR, BARACK?

It's all very well to state here and there in the left/alternative press that we know who he's working for, but does the point not need to be made in great numbers on the lawn of the White House for its effect?

There will be one or another result of all of this: revolution or the likely final death of the country. Only a witless moron believes that the health of corporate America leads to the health of anything else.

"Meanwhile, the MSM continues to spread lies...and rightwing organizations are stacking town hall meetings...."

You bet.
And amazing, isn't it (and demanding much fuller understanding,) how fascist impulses in human nature are so much more easily ignited in us than any contra-poising progressive impulses are...?

But all of this rightwing, faux anti-Socialist storm trooper activity over the HC insurance issue became guaranteed once the newly ensconced Obama abandoned his campaign pledge to 'show presidential leadership,' and handed the HC insurance issue over to Congress -- way back in February.

Obama's staff insiders reportedly concede this now meta-disastrous tactical consequence, but say it was unavoidable; they counter with the explanation that O's campaign pledge To Lead HC Insurance Reform from the bully pulpit of the presidency, was conceived before the scope of the financial meltdown started to become clear in late Summer/early Fall08;

they say further, that O was sincere when he made his early to mid-campaign pledge, but that by Feb/March09 the US budget deficit/national debt accumulations were so direly stretched via Bush's TARP bailout and by the additional (they forget to mention even bigger, Obama-directed) payoffs to the finance/banking sector, any fed gov-administrated SP system was at that point no longer remotely affordable; so that there was no feasible SP issue for O to 'lead' at that point; and that THIS is 'really why' Obama threw the issue out to Congress: him knowing it was dead in the water and its failure better-blamed on a corrupt Congress than on him, etc. etc.

For those still charitably inclined toward Obama, all this might be quasi-believable if Obama had not begun to reneg from Day One on most of his Other campaign pledges, too -- reneg, that is, on policies having nothing to do with HC insurance reform.

The most realistic interpretation I've heard so far, to explain-away this Other problem with Obama's apostasies -- one that's still charitable to his alleged initially Good Intentions -- goes this way:
Obama became the latest Insider System's chosen fall guy for outwardly presiding over a dangerously citizen-angering but no-longer-delayable series of Corrections in the plutocratic System, not the least of which was the need to safely channel and redirect alarmingly growing public outrage over the System's blatant rottenness, through a credibly hope-speaking (the more self-deluded, the better), attractive (especially if a member of a racial minority), lightly-progressive reformer like Obama, rather than under the administration of another White, WASP Insider/Republican like McCain, who was, to boot, openly affirming the ruinous Republican-led duopoly policies of the past years, plus in danger of loosing the election.

But ESPECIALLY if you buy this somewhat deeper, however still-charitable, analysis of candidate Obama's campaign intentions vs his betraying presidential conduct, the following conclusion becomes all that more inescapable:
When it comes to US presidents, especially, no one is allowed to gain the visible administrative helm of government who can't afterward be safely controlled --assuming they might need to be controlled at-all -- by the unelected gang of power brokers; the largely-invisible, Constitutionally-illicit gang of plutocrats who run US society -- most of whom, ethically, are the worst scum of the Earth and always have been.

What to do about this horrible reality? -- given the added dimension of an increasingly distracted, ignorant, and passive citizenry, isn't clear even to a majority of sincerely reform-minded progressives.

In any case, and in my opinion, nothing democratically-Correctional can even have the potential of being done about this horridly deepening reality --at all -- until more of us progressives work harder/get more organized among ourselves, to make sure that sufficient numbers of additional average people come to see that a mindless plutocracy IS their governing reality.

If the general US population proves at that point to be still too far gone, too ethically/cognitively dysfinctional to be 'reached' or unable to care about Who's Interests? govern its members -- then such stouter progressive efforts will yield nothing most of us may want to see.
But such efforts failing, or failing the lack of them entirely, will at least yield a generic process which subsuming Nature prescribes in faltering bio-systems no less than in diseased human Polities:
final collapse, structural disappearance, and re-absorption into a newly fertilized Ground whose constituent poisons are, at least for the historical moment, re-alembicated-out.

I observed with keen interest a recent remark by the CD poster, 'Nietzsche,' in which he/she imprecates (apparently to Whatever controls Human Fate):
Don't let me come back HERE.....

I still try to resist this fully exasperated existential sentiment (and would guess that 'Nietzsche' does also.)
But it's becoming increasingly problematic, for some of us, at least, to do so.

Americans now have a president who appears willing to focus toward countering the snowballing environmental destruction,which is no longer disputable; as well as other necessary reforms.

However, This president is well aware if the slanderous and viscious assaults by the lobbiests and right wing that undone President Carter, because of his efforts to implement these vital measures--and this is now shaping his policies. He needs to know that the character assinations used against Carter will not again succeed.

First paragraph, first sentence:

"Pressed by lobbyists".....

Three words tells you who is in charge!

push the deck chairs around all you want; the sucker's still gonna sink.

“Who is ever going to go into a deal with the White House again if they don’t keep their word?"

That includes the voting public, I assume.

The only deal the president should honor is the one he made during the campaign to end the influence of lobbyists in Washington.

Everybody calm down, regain your composure and continue sending emails, signing on-line petitions, writing letters to the editor, calling your Congress person in the House and Senate, and the President, and all will be well.

We get what we voted for, like it or not. A few citizens weren't deceived, and pleaded against supporting this one-party duopoly.

Scorn for the common people, money for imperialism, the war-mongers, and money-changers, but zilch on Single Payer health care.

And for my fellow trade-unionists and sisters and brothers who work for a living and want union representation, what happened to EFCA? During campaign time, the political prostitutes frequent union halls (what's left of them) with their phony speeches and the union leaders are thrilled being photographed with them, only to be abandoned once these hypocrites are elected. There are a few good ones, Dennis Kucinich being the best!

What is lacking in America is working-class unity. Without a persons labor, nothing gets done, and all the money in the world is useless without somebody paid to do something. If the American people ever figure it out, you'll get Single Payer, EFCA, and other progressive legislation to advance society and the environment for the better. Remember the seven magic words and prepare to act on them.

No health care reform is better than this. No matter what you think even single payer would deliver, you would be wrong. The only thing any "reform" is designed to deliver is profits to the medical monopoly. And then what happens when the "good guys" (Dems), get replaced with the "bad guys" (Rs)?

Educate yourself. Break the monopoly. Try wachoice.org to learn how the monopoly cheats us. (See "War on Holistic MDs) If you live in Washington State, learn about all the alternative practitioners in your State and consult them. Support their Health Freedom of Choice Act in the State legislature.

Learn about Health Freedom and Codex. The monopoly, along with agribusiness, has serious designs on our money and our health. www.healthfreedomusa.org (Natural Solutions Foundation-run by a physician who closed her natural medicine practice to do battle with trans-nationals and her retired Army General husband)

Here's a suprisingly EXCELLENT report from 60 Minutes in 2007 describing the ugliness surrounding the legislation that led to big pharmas' successful coup against Medicare.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/
id=3108688n&tag=related;photovideo

So now the White House is inviting scumbags like Billy Tauzin to come and negotiate drug deals that sell out the "customers" as Obama now characterizes sick people (he must be seriously brainwashed by the Goldman Sachs execs running the treasury). NativeSon is right. The place is looking like what was once politely termed a "red light house".

I've read about presidents living in a bubble. It's like they're isolated from reality. Certainly from the consequences of their actions. But we aren't. Maybe it will take a string of one termers for the American people to realize that as Ralph said, there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. At least in the sense that the corporations own the country and both parties. And everything follows from that.

When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson

I remember when Nader said that he wondered if Obama, when elected, would be Uncle Sam or Uncle Tom. Oh! what a fuss that caused. Nader was a RACIST!!

But now it is clear that he was asking an important question and I have the answer. Obama is a willing and obedient servant of the boss.

Wars go on and expand, Employee Free Choice Act is dead in the water, Single Payer is not going to pass but instead the 'reform' will be worse than what we have now, and the banksters laugh all the way to the bank---oh, correct that. They won't put their nice bonus checks in the bank--they will use it to buy up the forclosed homes of the working people.

he is already running for reelection. and needs the money
he is shaking these companies down for.so much for change!
its the dollar and cent kind of change he's really talking
about.obama is talking code when he starts talking about
change that's the signal to the ceo's watching him that
they need to send some bribe money. obama's from chicago
where that's how it done. also he taught at uc where
most of the destruction of our country was part of the
curriculum!

This is perfect. Make deals with pharma not to negotiate drug prices or purchse cheaper drugs from Canada, In the next breath, tell us how Medicare needs to be reformed (privatized) because it's getting too expensive. Just like the two faced Republicans and their Medicare legislation which did the same thing, then they scream about the outrageous costs of entitlement programs driving up the debt.

The biggest espense for pharma is their repulsive ads and sleazy marketing. They claim costs are high because of research, which actually accounts for 14% of pharma's costs. Research has become a profitable game sometimes by university researchers that milk the system or rig the results to get more dollars.

Nobody cares because Congress considers the American people to be the corporate world's ATM.

he is already running for reelection. and needs the money
he is shaking these companies down for.so much for change!
its the dollar and cent kind of change he's really talking
about.obama is talking code when he starts talking about
change thats the signal to the ceo's watching him that
they need to send some bribe money. obama's from chicago
where that's how it done. also he taught at uc where
most of the destruction of our country was part of the
curriculum!

This is the "change" we can believe in?

I'm so disgusted: my friends who are diehard Democrats still refuse to see through this. It's like trying to talk to a person in an abusive relationship; they're so used to the abuse that they don't realize it's abnormal and unhealthy, and until they get help and get out of the relationship they continue to justify the bad (dangerous, potentially fatal) behavior and mistreatment.

Meanwhile, the MSM continues to spread lies and myths about the countries that DO have the best health care systems in the world- and rightwing organizations are stacking town hall meetings with people to shout down their reps and anyone who tries to calmly and rationally discuss real reform.

"I voted for Nader, and proud of it!" Hey, thanks a lot. That really helped.

Sounds like knee-capping extortion to me. Or a twist of Obama's arm as Big Pharma walks him out with a gun to his head.

Or just Obama knowing who's boss -- not the people who voted for him!

(Not that I am one of those -- I voted for Nader, and proud of it!)

What a schmuck!

Libs and progs, why don't you stop bitching and send politicians more money than they get from the cons in the health-care lobby?

I received a letter about calling my Representative for "health insurance reform." The letter was from Mitch Stewart, the Director of Organizing for America, which is the President's campaign organization at www.barackobama.com

In the letter, it says at the beginning:

"Members of Congress have been home for just a few days, and they're already facing increased pressure from insurance companies, special interests, and partisan attack organizations that are spending millions to block health insurance reform."

Here is my letter back to Mitch:

>>MItch,

"Health *insurance* reform" you say? By this language you show us all that we have already lost the quest to create genuine health care reform. Most Americans want a single payer system. President Obama said that he supported it when certain conditions were met—which are now met—yet he refuses to endorse the system most Americans want. 

I believe it is he who has caved to special corporate interests. And you too.

Please, reflect on the fact that President Obama has become a corporate Democrat in all areas of significant policy.

He is bolstering the medical insurance industry. He is escalating the occupation of Afghanistan. He refuses to even consider electoral reform to get the private money out of our elections. He has hired into his administration for economic policy the very same people who caused the problems. Yet Stiglitz, Krugman, Baker, Hudson, Greider are prominent, and not a word of support for them from President Obama.

The whole situation is sickening. And a betrayal of progressive ideals.

I hope the progressives in the House defeat any corporate insurance supporting bill. Then maybe we can get something worth getting in health care reform from a new Congress who will stand up to the insurance and pharma industries, 
and to the corporate Democrat occupying the White House. And to the likes of you who pretend to be reformers. You are really part of a Trojan Horse operation that sounds progressive, but maintains the corporate totalitarian system that enriches the rich and betrays everyone else. 

Have you the courage Mitch to respond to my letter? We'll see.

Sincerely,>>

I haven't heard from Mitch yet. I don't expect to.

Well, who could have fathomed from Obama's repeated assurances that his administration would be TRANSPARENT that "transparent" meant "transparently devious and secretive"?

Damn his eleventeen-dimensional chess-playing political Ninja Master mind!

· Yr Obd't Servant

“It is a pivotal issue not just about health care. Are industry groups going to be the ones at the table who get the first big piece of the pie and we just fight over the crust?”

Is the pope catholic?

Are you really that naive, Mr. Grijalva, about the fundamentals of your own country's corporatist version of "democratic" governance and how it's actually sponsored and controlled by so-called "industry stakeholders"?

Be grateful that you're privileged to "fight over the crust." The people whom you allegedly represent will be damned lucky if they get to fight over a few crumbs. In fact, their "pie" is never even on the table.

Here's what I don't get. Obama's smart, very smart. He's A-A and was a community organizer, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he's sympathetic to the less fortunate. He's also an instant historic figure as the first black prez. AND everyone in the world loves him. I.e. he's got everything going for him. So WHY would he sell out so quickly? It just doesn't make sense.

One thing that the "right", from here to Pluto, and the "left", from here to Xanadu can agree on is that we are ALL getting fucked! Same with those making less than $250 thousand and those making above ....fuck them, they are the ones fucking us. We can all agree on that the money that "WE the PEOPLE" are taxed each day, week, month, quarter, year is given away with no return on our "investment". NativeSon very aptly renamed the White House, to the Whore House. That is surely where ANYTHING GOES for the right price! But, it doesn't stop there! Congress is seemingly in competition with the Whore House as to who can do the most johns for the most money! They are giving it away faster than we can make it! They are giving it away so fast that they have to borrow money from China. The only question I have left is Who's our daddy?; and who's fucking me next?

I am not surprised about the deals that are being made. There is a lot in this Bill that the American people do NOT want, but yet it seems it will be forced down our throats.

Ugh! One dollar,one vote. Big Health wins another one for the Gipper.

Sold out again. How many times in 7 months. This must be some kind of record. Pitiful. Just pitiful. And here we sit, twiddling our keyboards. How much more? Sort of a game now, is it not? How far will they go? It's absolutely astounding. Obama, you make the shrub look like a walk in the park...almost!

"Who is ever going to go into a deal with the white house if they do not keep their word"?
A very poignant question there 'Billy'.

This should be a clarifying statement (rhetorical question actually) as well as the rest of the article a 'reinforcement', that you can 'expect the White House to keep all the words'---you can pay for----.

Taking this information into consideration; I think that the People of the USA should start 'living in the real world', and the best start would be to 'come clean' with the rest of the world. Admit the 'obvious', and live a life 'out in the open'.
To facilitate this 'revelation' the american people should make a 'grass roots' effort the change the name of the 'White House' ----to .

" The Whore House @ 1600 Pennsylvania Ave'---everyone is welcome--just bring money---lots of money--- we are open 24/7/365 for your pleasure."

At least they will 'sleep better each night' knowing in their 'hearts' that they are 'at least honest with the world'.

Good Luck America, you really need it.

If supporters are ever to get any effective traction with the American people in promoting the single payer health care system that most people want, it may be necessary for the dialogue to feature chapter-and-verse of just such corrupt shenanigans as are described here. There is a strong populist feeling (expressed in anger at the bailouts and "executive compensation") that can help get up enough popular dander to promote a driving from the public temple the merchants who are occupying all the seats at the "reform" table. And, unfortunately, these resentments can only build as "deal" after "deal" comes to light about, for example, the distribution of "stimulus" goodies from the federal treasury. (Just today, Broward County FL learned there would be no such funding for their strapped Sheriff's Office, tnough it suffered as much understaffing as other counties that did get such funding). Everybody must have noticed how exposed "scandal" can have devastating effects on the power of the rich and famous, and we who are promoting health care (or any other) reform should not be reticent about harnessing this populist anger against corruption in high places.

The 2008 revenues for the top 12 pharmaceutical companies was 383 billion dollars.

(http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2007/industries/21/1.html).

For cost savings of 80 billion over ten years they would surrender 2% of annual revenue--assuming that revenues remain flat. A pretty good deal if you consider the possible down side of legislation that would empower the government to negotiate drug prices.

To what other industry is Obama going to sell us out for a mere 2% of annual revenues?

The Demos are going to pass a "health care" bill, only the health that's being ensured is the continued healthy profits of the medico-industrial complex.