A Double Dose of Happiness...

Well, well, well...

Evidently PhRMA isn't too happy these days. They went out and hired Republican super-genius Billy Tauzin (paying him a cool $2 million annually) to ensure that Obamacare didn't cramp the pharmaceutical industry's profits. What was Tauzin's brilliant idea? Shovel $150 million of PhRMA money in the general direction of the White House.

Now that it's clear that Obamacare isn't going anywhere, and that Barack Obama doesn't have the balls to take on anyone, PhRMA is a bit miffed:

Billy Tauzin, one of Washington’s highest-paid lobbyists, is resigning as president of the drug industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America amid internal disputes over its pact with the White House to trade political support for favorable terms in the proposed health care overhaul.

So PhRMA's out $150 million and Tauzin's out of a job. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch.

Under his direction — and amid some protests from its board — the organization had backed up its end of the deal by spending more than $100 million on television advertising to promote the plan.
But after the health care overhaul stalled when Democrats lost the Massachusetts Senate seat, some industry leaders felt the trade group had gone too far giving concessions and could lose on some important legislative issues without gaining the protection it had sought.

It's worth pointing out that Tauzin did what PhRMA wanted: He bought the pharmaceutical industry a president. The fact that the president they bought wasn't worth a shit isn't Tauzin's fault. The pharmaceutical industry got what they thought they wanted.

There's a lesson in all this, but you can bet your last farthing that business will not learn it.

Comments

[PawPaw]

Billy Tauzin is a Louisiana politician in the mold of Earl Long and Edwin Edwards. He parlayed a House seat into a well-paid lobbying job. I'm surprised he's managed to stay ahead of a grand jury this long

[Jeff]

Glad to see you've joined the hate big business, especially the pharma industry, bandwagon the Democrats have been on. Don't scratch the fleas you'll get laying down with those dogs, it only makes it worse.
Oh well, one more RSS feed to femove.

[Dennis The Peasant]

I'm not putting the hate on big business, Jeff. I'm pointing out that PhRMA bought into the wrong strategy: They sold out to protect themselves. What they should have been doing is fighting Obamacare tooth and nail by justifying the industry's worth to the American people.

What Tauzin talked PhRMA into was acting cowardly. The upshot? PhRMA comes across as an industry that couldn't make its case on the merits of their argument. And these assholes wonder why they are demagogued.

I make no apologies for enjoying PhRMA (and Tauzin) reaping what they sowed. They wanted protection and they got it. What they're pissed off about is that they thought they were getting protection against Al Capone, but then found out they were paying millions to avoid being menaced by Minnie Mouse. I find that funny.

[just passin by]

OTOH, by paying off The Obamessiah, the pharma boys made it pretty obvious exactly who he was and how easily he'd roll over. This may have had an effect on the morale of some of the moderate Dems. Besides, what's a 150 million dollars between corrupt scumbags?

[Phil Smith]

I was going to make a similar point as just passin by. The PhRMA deal helped show that cost containment was never a goal of the administration.

[Jeff]

Dennis,

So you don't begrudge the pharma industry it profits ? Thats great ...

I think you are spot on for ridiculing them for a "seat at the table and not on the menu" strategy ... but that just a told you so ... after what we witness Obama doing to Humanna can you blame them for trying ? apparently yes ... my take away from your headline and the post was that the pharma guys deserve what they got and are going to get from Obama.

What alternative would you have suggested then, when it looked inevitable ? Yes, they could have fought but Obama was in full Al Capone mode then and has only been shown to be a mini mouse in hindsight ...

decisions can only be made with the information at hand and at the time it was really the only course of action they could reasonably take. There was a "screw big business" mindset among Americans that has only recently cooled off as the facts sink in about the financial crisis.

To expect a sheep to grow fangs and claws to fight the wolves at the table is just not reality. The pharma industry is one of if not the most heavily regulated industry in America. The hoops they have to jump thru for years to bring a new drug to market is ingrained in their DNA by now. They have to deal with the government in friendly terms or they risk their business.

You say you don't think they'll learn but doesn't firing their lobbyist show some understanding of their mistake ?

Thank you for the clarification though ...

[Dennis The Peasant]

Jeff-

Maybe. What I think it shows is that they're pissed off. That's different from learning.

Anon-

$20 for 3 months worth, asshole. Got a better deal?

[Randy Rager]

90% (or more) of all pharmaceutical research occurs in the United States.

90% (or more) of all medical innovation occurs in the United States.

Yet somehow it's the United States that needs a government takeover of the medical system.

Bullshit.

[richard mcenroe]

"What Tauzin talked PhRMA into was acting cowardly."

How did he avoid getting the RNC chairmanship?

[Dennis The Peasant]

Richard-

He was white.

[Mike Myers]

Let's not call Tauzin a Republican; I think that he was first elected as a Democrat. Whether I've got the order right or not, like John Kerry, he voted for it before he was against it. He switched parties down there in Louisiana at some point.

But he's just another guy thrown under the Obama bus. He was hired because he had a brilliant reputation as a negotiator/lobbyist/fixer in the D.C. cesspool. He went in and cut a deal with Obama for his clients in August 2009. But mid September he was crying that Obama had welshed on the deal (as Obama had in fact done). Tauzin and his clients got screwed: so his clients canned him. End of story--Tauzin is looking up at the bottom of the transmission on the Obama Bus--aka "The Broken Promises Special". By now pretty much nobody but a die hard progessive believes anything that Obama says.

[Randy Rager]

Well anon, I did say it could be more. If it's less you need to bring some evidence. A bald faced assertion that I'm "just wrong" is what's known as an "unconvincing argument", see also "weak stick" and "fucking stupid".

[Wm T Sherman]

"In 2004, two thirds of the 30 top selling medicines in the world were developed in the USA."
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2007/07/16/european_drugs_american_drugs.php

I don't especially like the weasel who wrote the article - last year he dissed my company's product unfairly. But the quote is solid - it's from the E.U., lamenting their declining markket share.

[Randy Rager]

Well, that addresses the top 30 drugs, a darned small portion of the pharmaceutical market overall. How does the rest of it hold up?

Even so, 66% is certainly nothing to sneer at.

[sparky]

as the new lefty crank here, i'd like to ask: why exactly should product development be cited as a reason for NOT having national health care? all people ever seem to do is say well, these other countries develop fewer products, ergo the US healthcare system is better. i am unaware of any evidence that there is a cause and effect relationship here. further, if that is the argument, why do so many other countries have better health metrics? when talking national policy, isn't the appropriate question what is best for the country rather than what is best for the stockholders?

[Lefty]

Sparky the Republican motto ought to be "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for the stockholders".

[Randy Rager]

Ever compare the cancer survival rate for say, England, to the cancer survival rate for America? I have, and it adds to my incredibly long list of things that make me glad to be an American. That survival rate didn't just happen. It's a result of product and treatment development. Those things don't occur without a profit margin to spur them.

Once you pull the homicide rate for young black males out of the mix, no other country on earth has our metrics, except in areas that just don't count for much. Go ahead and call me a racist (I know that's your first impulse), but its not going to change that fact.

Gee, Lefty, I never thought that you'd be against the majority. Or did you just not realize that most Americans are now investors, thus stockholders?

Dumbass.

[just passin by]

The stockholders happen to be the American people, anon/elliot/chomskybot/mark.

They're the pension fund holders and big 401k companies that buy and thus own the stock.

Do you have any clue about how business works other then "EEEEEEVILLLLLL!"?

[Phil Smith]

sparky - ask Michael J. Fox, Canadian, why he bothers lobbying in the US for embryonic stem cell research. He's got all the free health care he wants back home. Let the Canucks do the research!! And the Europeans and the Cubans!!

Once you're done puzzling over that, look up "free riding" and you might figure it out.

[micropile]

As the old adage goes, we've established the industry is a whore. All we're negotiating is the price!

[just passin by]

Actually, in this case, the Obamessiah is the whore; the one that gets paid to bend over. The industry is the john that got ripped off.