Cheering in the Streets for Unprecedented Feats
Obama, Democrats Cheer Announcement of Drug Savings for Federal Programs By Ceci Connolly Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, June 20, 2009 9:02 PM President Obama and Democratic lawmakers scouring for money to reduce the cost of comprehensive health-reform legislation cheered news today that drugmakers have agreed to squeeze $80 billion out of revenue over the next decade. . . . voluntarily trim prices . . . tangible example of the type of reform . . . requires every American to have health insurance, a change that would surely produce tens of millions of new customers for the industry . . .
____________________________________________________ Voluntarily give up $80 billion, huh? Does that give you a measure of what they are actually afraid will be required? Ah yes, there's dancing in the streets because we are now (or are promised to be) merely prisoners of the pharmaceutical industry, instead of tortured by them. The torture was enabled in 2006, when a Republican-dominated Congress (in a 2am voice-vote with no discussion) created the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit (neatly removing all their American constituents from access to drug price-competition).
And you thought Congress was about anti-trust legislation, while they were actually handing out a monopoly on your prescription drug costs-- at 2am, when no one watches C-Span-- as if it were a clandestine street-corner drug deal (which it was).
Your and my elected representatives slapped each other on the back and went home, while Americans got slapped on their way to the corner drugstore. Bill Moyers had an interesting take on it, that's well worth the listen. Now these thieves are willing to give back some of the take in order to keep their license to steal from the public. And the fearless Washington Post headlines this as a Cheering Announcement of Drug Savings. First we steal. Then, when we're caught, we give some back and call it savings. And our national press leads the cheer.