Tweet
On Honest Politicians
On Honest Politicians
Monday, April 02, 2007
Ron Smith
The Sage of Baltimore, H. L. Mencken, said, “An honest politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.” I couldn’t get that thought out of my mind last evening while watching the lead segment on CBS’s 60 Minutes, which detailed the legislative machinations that insured we in the United States get to pay the highest prices for prescription drugs in the entire world.
Bribery? Intimidation? Runaway corruption? It’s all there, my friends, as you can easily deduce by reading this account of the program in question.
Some highlights include the fact that the Medicare prescription drug bill, over a thousand pages long, was written by lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry, got to members of the House one morning and was voted on in the dead of the night so as to escape as much media scrutiny as possible.
To say the roll call vote was unusual is way too much of an understatement. It lasted nearly three hours, the first two hours and forty-five minutes during which there were enough votes to defeat the bill. The time was needed to twist the arms of enough representatives to get the dark deed done.
We see North Carolina Republican Congressman Water Jones say, “I’ve been in politics 22 years, and it was the ugliest night I have ever seen in 22 years.”
The man controlling the process was former Congressman Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, who steered it through the house and was rewarded with a $2 million dollar a year job as president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. How’s that for a payoff?
After the deed was done, “In all, at least 15 congressional staffers, congressmen and federal officials left to go work for the pharmaceutical industry whose profits were increased by several billion dollars,” CBS reports.
Where’s the outrage? There really isn’t much, which says a lot about our situation these days. When you pay much high prices than what others pay for your prescription drugs (Lipitor, for example costs Medicare patients at least $785 for a year’s supply, while the VA’s price is $520 because the VA can negotiate prices for drugs while the bill we’re discussing prohibits such bargaining for Medicare) at least you’ll know Billy Tauzin and his helpers cashed in big time. Aren’t you happy for them?
Ron Smith's Commentary
rsmith@wbal.com
Weekdays 3PM-6PM
What's RSS?
Monday, April 02, 2007
Ron Smith
The Sage of Baltimore, H. L. Mencken, said, “An honest politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.” I couldn’t get that thought out of my mind last evening while watching the lead segment on CBS’s 60 Minutes, which detailed the legislative machinations that insured we in the United States get to pay the highest prices for prescription drugs in the entire world.
Bribery? Intimidation? Runaway corruption? It’s all there, my friends, as you can easily deduce by reading this account of the program in question.
Some highlights include the fact that the Medicare prescription drug bill, over a thousand pages long, was written by lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry, got to members of the House one morning and was voted on in the dead of the night so as to escape as much media scrutiny as possible.
To say the roll call vote was unusual is way too much of an understatement. It lasted nearly three hours, the first two hours and forty-five minutes during which there were enough votes to defeat the bill. The time was needed to twist the arms of enough representatives to get the dark deed done.
We see North Carolina Republican Congressman Water Jones say, “I’ve been in politics 22 years, and it was the ugliest night I have ever seen in 22 years.”
The man controlling the process was former Congressman Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, who steered it through the house and was rewarded with a $2 million dollar a year job as president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. How’s that for a payoff?
After the deed was done, “In all, at least 15 congressional staffers, congressmen and federal officials left to go work for the pharmaceutical industry whose profits were increased by several billion dollars,” CBS reports.
Where’s the outrage? There really isn’t much, which says a lot about our situation these days. When you pay much high prices than what others pay for your prescription drugs (Lipitor, for example costs Medicare patients at least $785 for a year’s supply, while the VA’s price is $520 because the VA can negotiate prices for drugs while the bill we’re discussing prohibits such bargaining for Medicare) at least you’ll know Billy Tauzin and his helpers cashed in big time. Aren’t you happy for them?
Ron Smith's Commentary
rsmith@wbal.com
Weekdays 3PM-6PM
What's RSS?
Comment