President Obama spent much of his time during the Obamacare debate ripping pharmaceutical companies for supposedly overcharging customers. But as it turns out, an email from June 2009 shows that Obama’s director of White House Office of Health Reform, Nancy DeParle, told Big Pharma’s chief lobbyist that the Obama administration would protect the industry from drug reimportation from Canada, which would cut prices on medication. “I made a decision, based on how constructive you guys have been, to oppose importation on this bill,” she wrote. In other words, the Obama administration got its quid pro quo: support from Big Pharma. In exchange, they’d ensure that drugs weren’t imported from Canada to undercut US prices.
Big Pharma agreed to finance millions of dollars worth of television advertising on behalf of Obamacare, and absorb $80 billion in cost over ten years. As Philip Klein points out:
In exchange, PhRMA not only ended up with a law that promised to provide it with millions of new customers, but protected it against policies contemplated by Democrats that would have been harmful to their profits, such as introducing a government plan into the Medicare prescription drug program, allowing rebates for drug purchases through the program and drug re-importation.
Obama’s promises of transparency and accountability were lies in 2008; now, they’re provable lies. And those who kowtow to him reap the benefits of his dishonesty.
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