Via Ben Smith, PhRMA has put together its closing argument in favor of healthcare reform:

Say what you will about the PhRMA deal -- that the cost of bringing the industry inside the tent (i.e. nixing prescription drug reimportation) was too high -- its support has been key to helping sell healthcare reform. And although the bill is far from perfect, it does cover 30 million Americans (including 15 million to be added to the rolls of governmental programs like Medicaid and CHIP), all while greatly reducing the long-term deficit. Indeed, there is a reason why liberal support for healthcare reform has increased by 16 points in just the past month, providing pressure on Members like Dennis Kucinich to flip their vote in favor of the bill.

By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium Blogger

You will be shocked, shocked to hear that a Blue Dog Democrat who made a career out of undermining his own party is sucker-punching them on his way out.  Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana abruptly announced this week that he would not seek reelection in November. Bayh’s departure is ratcheting up insecurity in the Democratic caucus at the very moment they need to take decisive action to pass health care reform.

Bayh could easily have won a third term, but it’s unclear whether any other Democrat can hold the seat. To add insult to injury, Bayh waited until 24 hours before the filing deadline for Democratic primary candidates, sending Indiana Dems scrambling to find a candidate to run in his place. Bayh’s tardiness was calculated. Since no Democrats were ready to file by the deadline, the Indiana Democratic establishment will get to handpick Bayh’s successor.

In a call with state Democratic officials, Bayh said his abrupt departure is for the best, as Evan McMorris-Santoro reports for TPMDC. According to Bayh, he’s doing the party a favor by sparing them a contentious primary process. Thanks a lot.

What does this mean for health care reform?

What does Bayh’s departure portend for health care reform? Monica Potts of TAPPED argues that replacing a conservative Democrat like Bayh with a moderate Republican won’t make that much difference. Bayh was never a reliable Democratic vote.

But Tim Fernholtz of TAPPED dismisses this view as naive. Fernholtz predicts that, for all of Bayh’s faults, the senate will be much worse without him: “In essence, the difference between this insubstantial Hoosier and, say, [GOP hopeful] Dan Coats, is simple: You can buy off Bayh.” Bayh voted for health care reform and the stimulus, no Republican, no matter how “moderate” is going to vote that way.

Anyone who expects a moderate Republican from Indiana to support any part of the Democratic agenda is deluded. On the other hand, the Senate Democrats already passed their bill, their only remaining task would be to pass a “fix” through budget reconciliation to make changes in the legislation that would be acceptable to the House. Of course, reconciliation will be a bitter political fight. One wonders whether the demoralized Senate Democrats will have the stomach for it.

About that health care summit…

Note that congressional Republicans have yet to commit to attending the “bipartisan” health care summit that they called for. Christina Bellatoni of TPMDC reports that yesterday White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs wondered why the Republicans were for the summit before they were against it:

“Right before the president issued the invitation, the—the thing that each of these individuals was hoping for most was an opportunity to sit down on television and discuss and engage on these issues. Now, not accepting an invitation to do what they’d asked the president to do, if they decide not to, I’ll let them leap the—leap the chasm there and try to explain why they’re now opposed to what they said they wanted most to do,” Gibbs said.

Busting the filibuster

On the bright side, the Democrats still have a sizable majority in the Senate, with or without Bayh. Republicans would have to beat all 10 vulnerable Democratic incumbent senators in the next election in order to regain control of the Senate. The more immediate threat to health care reform and the Democrats’ ability to govern in general is the institutional filibuster. Structural reform is needed to break the impasse. Lawyer and author Tom Geoghegan talks with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! on strategies for busting the filibuster.

Public option resurfacing

Mike Lillis of the Washington Independent reports that four senate Democrats have thrown their lot in with progressives clamoring for a public option through reconciliation. Sens. Sherrod Brown (OH), Jeff Merkley (OR), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) and Michael Bennet (CO) argue for the public option in an open letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid. The letter reads:

There are four fundamental reasons why we support this approach – its potential for billions of dollars in cost savings; the growing need to increase competition and lower costs for the consumer; the history of using reconciliation for significant pieces of health care legislation; and the continued public support for a public option….

Big pharma’s lobby

That’s nice, but let’s not forget who’s really in charge. In AlterNet, Paul Blumenthal recaps the sorry history of collusion between the White House, the pharmaceutical lobby group PhRMA, and the Senate. According to Blumenthal the White House steered pharmaceutical lobbyists directly to Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), chair of the powerful Finance Committee, who was entrusted with crafting the White House’s favored version of health care reform.

Abortion and health care reform

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, Nick Baumann of Mother Jones notes that the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) is making abortion is an obstacle to passing health care reform through reconciliation. The NRLC is insinuating that Bart Stupak (D-MI) and his coalition of anti-choice Democrats will vote against the Senate health care bill because it it’s slightly less restrictive of abortion than the bill the House passed. The good news is that it’s procedurally impossible to insert Stupak’s language into the Senate bill through reconciliation. The bad news is that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) needs every vote she can get to pass the Senate bill and anti-choice hardliners could be an obstacle.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

Senate Finance Committee Kisses PHrMA's Ass - cuts Public Option from Health Care Bill...

Let's congratulate Max Baucus and Charles Grassley who have knuckled under to Big Pharmaceuticals and kept any Public Option out of the Senate Finance Committee's bill. They can join the applause brought to the measure by the rich and make the United States remain outrageously stupid when compared wit EVERY OTHER INDUSTRIALIZED NATION.

It's really incredible that they can ignore the President, the majority of Americans and those who see the absolute logic in making health care a reformed institution as opposed to a guaranteed moneymaker for the employers of lobbyists.

Under The LobsterScope

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Consumers and patients rely on both federal safety regulations and strong state remedies to safeguard public health.  The Food and Drug Administration has been charged with assuring the safety, efficacy, and security of drugs and medical devices.  When the FDA fails to meet this responsibility, injured patients have the right to hold drug and device manufacturers accountable through state remedies and the civil justice system.  

Federal preemption of state remedies, as seen in the FDA's recent drug warning label rule, strips away the safety net of state remedies.  Recent FDA failures demonstrate that the federal regulatory process must be supplemented by state remedies in order to fully ensure the safety of American families.  

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One of the most often heard retorts to criticisms of the oil and pharmaceutical industries made by progressives is that they will oppose these companies no matter what, that they are maligning them in a knee-jerk way, that they are opposed to American companies making a profit. These retorts also often embedded with the notion that for all of the attacks, these companies are providing necessities for today's society: in the case of pharmaceuticals, new drugs that can help save countless lives; in the case of oil companies, the energy needed to make our world run.

There may be some truth in these arguments. At the least, they might sound plausible to the outsider's ear, which is as important as almost anything else. Yet while this is the case, these arguments also hide the larger, more profound truth: pharmaceutical and oil companies are putting profits above all else -- even their customers -- and are fleecing the federal government, and thus the American people. Two new federal studies show the extent of this. First, The New York Times' Edmund L. Andrews reports on an investigation that the Bush administration has fought long and hard to keep out of the public eye.

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