Google apparently must not be working today. Either that, or Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher has yet to master this useful internet tool: Hamsher, meanwhile, drew the ire of many progressives when she led a last-minute assault on the health care reform bill. In trashing the bill, she invoked the $80 billion PhRMA deal, with which she [...]

Roll Call has crunched the numbers and come up with a truly eye-popping figure of $876 million spent by medical interests lobbying Congress during the health care fight: Medical interests alone shelled out more than $876 million in lobbying expenses during the 15 months beginning in January 2009 and ending in March, when Congress passed [...]

Tim Carney says Goldman is using the GOP and the Democrats for a one-two punch to game regulation reform, just like the drug companies and AHIP did on the health care bill: At least three times in Goldman’s conference call Tuesday, spokesmen trumpeted the firm’s support for more federal control. Vague public calls for “reasonable [...]

Having suckered you into giving up your email address, fundraised heavily and built up their mailing lists by disingenuously flogging the public option, the veal pen turns around and shoots it in the back to save Michael Bennet’s ass. Yesterday SEIU and Progress Colorado showed up when David Sirota and 40-50 public option supporters delivered 34,000 petition signatures to Bennet’s office to protest AGAINST the public option.

The brand name prescription drug lobby PhRMA has been holding back on further support for health care reform until they are sure the final reconciliation package is still to the liking of the drug industry. The announcement that PhRMA plans to drop $6 million in a final round of pro-reform ads is a good indication [...]

I still don’t know if they can pass this monstrosity of a bill. But if progressives stand down and do nothing while corporate America runs roughshod our institutions and our representatives, no member of Congress will ever have the political courage to stand up against corporate power again.

One thing that has been eating away at me throughout this whole health care debate is the incredible hypocrisy and role reversal of both political parties compared to the Medicare Part D debate. The basic, highly corrupt design of the Senate health care bill is the same as the highly corrupt design as the Medicare [...]

If you ever wonder if large corporate interest groups have too much power in Washington, here is your answer: Congressional leaders are asking the pharmaceutical industry to cough up an additional $10 billion to help pay for the healthcare overhaul as they search for revenue to fund what will likely be a more expensive final [...]

President Obama can’t afford to let insurance companies win in the health care fight for reasons related to the pure crass politics of power. Like it or not (and I strongly do not like it), Obama’s health care strategy was to cut secret sweetheart deals with all the industry players in exchange for their active [...]

Last night, we witnessed the sad defeat of Dorgan’s drug re-importation amendment, which would have saved American consumers billions on their prescription drugs. Allowing Americans to buy cheaper drugs from Canada or Europe was one of Obama’s campaign promise on health care. Allowing drug re-importation was instrumental to a variety of campaign promise made by [...]