From the notoriously right-wing New York Times comes this interesting bit of reporting. Here are a few of my favorite passages:
Behind the scenes, however, Mr. Obama and his advisers have been quite active, sometimes negotiating deals with a degree of cold-eyed political realism potentially at odds with the president’s rhetoric.
Last month, for example, hospital officials were poised to appear at the White House to announce a deal limiting their industry’s share of the costs of the overhaul proposal when a wave of jitters swept through the group. Senator Max Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman and a party to the deal, had abruptly pulled out of the event. Was he backing away from his end of the deal?
Not to worry, Jim Messina, deputy White House chief of staff, told the lobbyists, according to White House officials and lobbyists briefed on the call. The White House was standing behind the deal, Mr. Messina said, capping the industry’s costs at a maximum of $155 billion over 10 years in trade for its political support.
And this:
Lobbyists for the drug and hospital industries say that, as early as June, White House officials directed them to work out cost-saving deals with Mr. Baucus’s committee. Drug industry lobbyists said they negotiated a deal to contribute $80 billion over 10 years toward the cost of an overhaul with Mr. Baucus, under White House supervision, before taking it to the president for final approval. House lawmakers have said they were caught by surprise when it was announced.
Hospital industry lobbyists, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of alienating the White House, say they negotiated their $155 billion in concessions with Mr. Baucus and the administration in tandem. House staff members were present, including for at least one White House meeting, but their role was peripheral, the lobbyists said.
Several hospital lobbyists involved in the White House deals said it was understood as a condition of their support that the final legislation would not include a government-run health plan paying Medicare rates — generally 80 percent of private sector rates — or controlled by the secretary of health and human services.
And this:
“We have an agreement with the White House that I’m very confident will be seen all the way through conference,” a lobbyist, Chip Kahn, director of the Federation of American Hospitals, told a Capitol Hill newsletter.
And finally, this:
Still, industry lobbyists say they are not worried. “We trust the White House,” Mr. Kahn said. “We are confident that the Senate Finance Committee will produce a bill we fully can endorse.”
Ah, health care industry lobbyists saying, publicly, "We trust the White House".
That just about says it all, doesn' it?
Here's a stiff dose of irony...
Comments