Drug Dealers

The drug industry has friends in high places in Washington, and it showed this week.

On Thursday, three Democrats joined 10 Republicans on a key Senate panel to reject an attempt to squeeze more money from drugmakers as part of health reform.

The proposal by Democrat Bill Nelson of Florida called for pharmaceutical companies to give more than $100 billion in rebates over 10 years for Medicare drug prescriptions for low-income patients. But the drug industry struck a deal with President Obama in June, pledging to save Medicare $80 billion over a 10-year period. The rebates proposed by Nelson would have been over and above that original commitment from the drugmakers.

The support from Democrats, including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, makes it clear why the pharmaceutical industry did it's deal with the White House. By negotiating early, big drug companies felt they could make concessions on their terms and avoid more onerous requirements from Democrats in Congress.

Thomas Carper of Delaware, who joined fellow Democrats Baucus and Robert Menendez of New Jersey in voting down the measure, told the New York Times that trying to extract more money from the drug companies would “undermine our ability to pass comprehensive health reform in this Congress” because the industry would then oppose and work against the effort.

Correction: This post originally reported that the proposal came from Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska. It was the Senate's other Democratic Nelson, Bill Nelson of Florida, who offered the idea.