Once upon a time, there was a guy who said this:

The system in Washington, D.C. is broken, rigged against middle-class Americans. Taking our country back requires more than just changing presidents. It requires changing the whole broken system. [...] if we want real change, you can't just negotiate with these special interests. you have to take their power away and return it to regular people.

The guy turned out to be a jerk in his personal life, but he was correct about the system being rigged because corporations have too much power in Washington. I was reminded of this while reading today's article by David Kirkpatrick in the New York Times:

Pressed by industry lobbyists, White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion.

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.

In response, the industry successfully demanded that the White House explicitly acknowledge for the first time that it had committed to protect drug makers from bearing further costs in the overhaul. The Obama administration had never spelled out the details of the agreement.

"We were assured: `We need somebody to come in first. If you come in first, you will have a rock-solid deal,' " Billy Tauzin, the former Republican House member from Louisiana who now leads the pharmaceutical trade group, said Wednesday. "Who is ever going to go into a deal with the White House again if they don't keep their word? You are just going to duke it out instead."

A deputy White House chief of staff, Jim Messina, confirmed Mr. Tauzin's account of the deal in an e-mail message on Wednesday night.

"The president encouraged this approach," Mr. Messina wrote. "He wanted to bring all the parties to the table to discuss health insurance reform."

Congressional Democrats should say "hell, no" to this deal. President Obama needs health care reform to pass this year. Congress should pass a bill containing reasonable cost-control measures (allowing reimportation of drugs from Canada and allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices). Then the president can decide whether his promise to the revolving-door Republican Billy Tauzin is so important that he must veto the health care overhaul.

Going to the mat to protect big Pharma's profits would be incredibly unpopular and would undermine Obama's long-term goal of keeping health care costs in check. I hope House Progressives are able to stand strong against this giveaway.

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by Lindsay Beyerstein, TMC MediaWire Blogger

This week, the White House teamed up with healthcare industry giants for a two-day PR blitz on health reform. A coalition of industry leaders sent a letter to president Obama over the weekend, pledging to help contain healthcare costs. The signatories include PhRMA (drug makers), Advamed (device manufacturers), the AMA (doctors), the AHA (hospitals), AHIP (health insurance), and SEIU's Health Care project. The corporate signatories are the very same interest groups that have fought U.S. healthcare reform for generations. AHIP, America's Health Insurance Plans, helped torpedo the Clinton plan in the 1990s with the infamous "Harry and Louise" TV spots.

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By Lindsay Beyerstein, TMC MediaWire blogger

Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) have set a timetable for healthcare reform by this fall--a major step on the road to passing legislation this year. The Senators' plan, set out in a letter to President Obama, calls for a bill by June, committee markups over the summer, and a final vote in the fall. (Just in time for delayed-action budget reconciliation, should the Republicans prove recalcitrant.)  

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"Let the vetting begin,"writes Taylor Marsh, who gives us this YouTube:

VIDEO LINK || Taylor's video link

ABC News is all over the scandal involving Tony Rezko, who goes on trial February 25th for "extortion and fraud charges, which include shakedown allegations involving an Illinois pension fund." (Much more below the fold.)

Besides Rezko, here are more of Barack Obama's lobbying connections:

• Pharmaceutical Companies: Obama's New Hampshire campaign co-chair, Jim Demers, is a lobbyist for pharmaceutical and pro-tobacco lobbyists.


• Credit Card Companies: Obama voted to protect credit card companies' "predatory credit card interest rates." (Sen. Hillary Clinton voted against the amendment.)


• Nuclear Energy Companies: Exelon Corporation, "the nation's leading nuclear-power-plant operator" is Barack Obama's "fourth largest patron." U.S. Sen. Obama "Obama helped to vote down an amendment that would have killed vast loan guarantees for power-plant operators" -- "called 'one of the worst provisions in this massive piece of legislation' by Taxpayers for Common  Sense and Citizens Against Government Waste; the public will not only pay millions of dollars in loan costs but will risk losing billions of dollars if the companies default." (Harper's)

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Update [2008-1-6 17:16:21 by susanhu]:

"Obama campaign repeatedly declines Sunday to explain Obama's debate denial." - The Page


ORIGINAL: And I thought he was the candidate for change? Mr. "No More Special Interests"? We already have a President who is completely clueless. Why does Senator Obama want to emulate W? Poor Obama is completely out of the loop and doesn't realize that his New Hampshire campaign chairman is a lobbyist. A big-time lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry at that.

WATCH THIS VIDEO OF OBAMA SHAKING HIS HEAD AND WHISPERING A DENIAL.

BELOW, the rest of the story:

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