| The idea of reimporting cheap prescription drugs from Canada, where drugs cost a fraction of what the identical medicine costs here, has been dormant for many months, if not years. Then, yesterday, Schweitzer stormed into the china shop and shattered some dishes.
Two questions arise. First, why had the issue gone dormant? Short Answer: The Obama Administration cut a deal with the Pharmaceutical Industry, early in the healthcare reform game, in which Obama pledged to kill any efforts to reimport drugs from Canada in return for the Drug Industry running TV Ads and other media--$80 million worth--in support of Obama's healthcare plan.
That's a shady deal by any measurement, unless the ultimate Obama plan finds some way to drastically reduce or subsidize prescription prices. Thus far the plan does not appear to do so.
But more troubling, and way under the radar, is the fact that our senators have taken the bait. Both Tester and Baucus recently (and quietly) voted against a Senate Bill that would have authorized the reimportation of prescription drugs (made by American companies) from Canada.
Beyond that, there lurks the more dark and deplorable history of Baucus giving the pharmaceutical industry one of the greatest government corporate giveaways in history. Those were the days when Baucus was hugging George Bush as a way to get re-elected (how times have changed). And the most insidious part of that 2002 vote by Baucus, of course, was that Baucus's Chief of Staff left Baucus's office shortly thereafter, to cash in in a new job lobbying the Senate on behalf of the drug industry, employment which quickly made him a millionaire.
The second question is what the White House and/or Secretary Sebelius is going to tell Schweitzer. Has Schweitzer gotten too cute? Has he poked the tiger one time too many? Will Obama somehow retaliate or freeze-out our Governor? Or, has Schweitzer put them in an impossible position and thus revived a very important issue, and put it on course for some sort of resolution? Perhaps even a concession from the drug industry that is something more than a promise to run stupid and ineffective campaign ads for a stupid and ineffective corporate giveaway which the White House is trying to sell us?
This is a major poke in the eye of the Obama team and is sure to get some national attention (as Schweitzer always seems to do.) But hey, the Obama Administration deserves it. |
