Could PhRMA, the trade association for all of the big, Republican-leaning drug companies, become the Democratic presidential nominee’s newest best friend?
When you’re finished laughing, you might want to settle in and ponder the positioning of Billy Tauzin, who took the reins of the association three years ago and has since been aggressively moving it toward the center of the political spectrum.
This is actually pretty good news. The dope industry is the second or third largest gang of ripoff outfits (AKA 'Corporate America') in the country. They see which way the political wind is blowing and are at least hedging their bets in anticipation of a Democratic regime. They just want to keep their gravy train runnin' smooth.
Tauzin does object, though, to some provisions of the Democratic plans, particularly creation of a government insurer of last resort.
While Tauzin embraces many of the Democratic proposals, he can’t support plans by both Obama and Clinton to create a government insurance program that could serve as an alternative for people who can’t get private coverage.
The way Tauzin sees it, that’s the first step toward a government-run, single-payer system modeled after those in Europe and elsewhere.
“I don’t like any notion that the government is going to come in and start competing with private insurance,” he said. “The government becomes a price fixer, and it will drive out private offerings. It ends up being a single-payer system eventually.”
Exactly right, Billy, yer catchin' on. That's what's going to happen if we wish to catch up to the civilized nations and get this economy under control. Health care will still come out of everybody's pocket, but the money will go for health care instead of obscene profit to 'insurance' companies, as in "pay us for years and you're covered until you get sick", and the dope cooks.
Billy's sayin' it like it's a bad thing, and will fight it like the dinosaurs fought extinction, with the same eventual outcome. The time of health care for profit is going to come to an end for many reasons, even if for no other reason than it's just plain wrong to selectively disregard people's lives and well-being to make a buck.
The gravy train's runnin' outta track.
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