The big news out of Washington this week was President Biden’s UNEXPECTED WIN with the anticipated passage of several major pieces of legislation following a flip-flop by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.).
But lost in all the hoopla was a Louisiana connection that goes back 12 years which illustrated in no uncertain terms how big money from corporate lobbies can influence legislation detrimental to Americans, particularly limited-income elderly citizens.
The Washington Post yesterday published a story that said Biden was on the cusp of securing passage of several major pieces of legislation on the climate, extension of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), increased minimum corporate taxation, and cost savings through reduced cost of Medicare prescription drugs.
It is that last one – officially the PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICING REFORM bill – that goes all the way back to the year 2003 and the decision by a Louisiana congressman to exit Congress through the revolving door to a multi-million-dollar lobbying job.
Rep. Billy Tauzin, who in 1995 switched from Democrat to Republican, announced in 2005 that he was leaving Congress after 25 years but it was what he neglected to say that was important.
Before heading out the door, he rammed through Congress the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill which contained a provision that prohibited Medicare from negotiating the price of prescription drugs. Consequently, the cost of drugs under the program fell under the Beltway cliché of “it is what it is,” more bluntly, the price of prescription medication was what the drug companies said it was. Period.
Oh, the bill also prohibited the importation of identical, cheaper drugs from Canada and elsewhere, thereby pretty much locking up a monopoly for American pharmaceutical companies.
What made the pill even more bitter to swallow is what Tauzin did next.
Literally the day after his retirement from Congress, he strolled down to K Street and settled into an $11.6 million job as (wait for it) head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, aka Big PhRMA.
That generous five-year contract made him the highest-paid health-law lobbyist in DC and the envy of K Street.
It also prompted Public Citizen President JOAN CLAYBROOK to say at the time, in something of an understatement, “It’s a sad commentary on politics in Washington that a member of Congress who pushed through a major piece of legislation benefiting the drug industry, gets the job leading that industry.”
His role in shepherding the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill came just two months before he resigned as chair of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce which oversaw the drug industry.
It was not Tauzin’s only questionable flirtation with the healthcare industry. From 2005 to 2020, he served as a board member of LHC GROUP, a provider of in-home healthcare and hospice services, being paid $152,000 in 2006 while in Congress and $263,000 in 2020.
The pharmaceutical industry and Republicans in Congress, needless to say, are almost apocalyptic in their OPPOSITION to the reforms in pricing. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), in a typical snit over anything Democrats propose, no matter the merit, has threatened to block other pieces of legislation if Democrats proceed with the price reconciliation process.
The 12 years of the prohibition on negotiations has likely cost the federal government (US taxpayers and the country’s elderly Medicare recipients) untold millions – perhaps billions – of dollars in unnecessarily inflated prescription drug prices.
It was not an oversight; it was a deliberate, calculated ploy designed to enrich the pharmaceutical industry – and in the process, a single member of Congress.
We have that former congressman, our very own Billy Tauzin, to thank for that.
And we now have Joe Biden, the subject or relentless attacks from the right, to thank for his efforts to rectify that deliberate maneuver.
Louisiana Voice 
And where is the uproar? Where are the negative repercussions for him? None and none. Sickening. But its seems we have a new Tauzin in congress. A Democrat, of all things.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema…https://www.businessinsider.com/kyrsten-sinema-pharmaceutical-giants-campaign-donations-drug-price-reform-2021-9
And, get this. The new plan in the Senate allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices? – “According to details released by the Senate this week, the Department of Health and Human Services will select 10 drugs eligible for negotiation starting in 2026, with the number of drugs increasing incrementally in subsequent years – 15 in 2027 and 20 by 2029.” Wow. Ten drugs. In four years.
Giving plenty of time and leeway to change or rescind it all. And the more things change, the more they stay the same as the saying goes.
But what about Hillary’s emails and Hunter Biden’s laptop?
I am a fan of your posts, and shared this one with a friend. He pointed out that Tauzin left Congress in January 2005, not 2010, which was Bush administration, not Obama. Also, the GOP House speaker was Hastert, not Pelosi. The bill passed in 2003, still in the afterglow of 9/11 and the Iraq invasion.
Your friend is absolutely correct. Corrections made.
But I don’t think I ever mentioned Pelosi or any other House Speaker or who was President when he resigned.
60 Minutes did a piece about Billy and his chicanery about the time he bolted Congress for his payoff. I recall he actually smirked when he unashamedly informed the interviewer that he was worth every penny of it. Might be time to go back and look at the archives. I have never understood what conservative principle supports the taking of billions of dollars directly from Americans’ pockets to subsidize drug prices in the rest of the developed world.
Converting dry dirt in west Texas to solar farm controlled by big utilities I have no problem with. However, converting Louisiana’s productive food producing farm land to that use for the long term interest and control of big utilities is an entirely another issue. One reason that I would have with the La Public Service Commission because it is not unreasonable that many already uses spaces – a solar top put on the Public Parking Garage downtown, The LSU garage or countless asphalt parking lots would reduce heat radiation, produce power and save important farm land to its best long term potential if directed though the correct incentive legislation. With the appropriate legislation It could even include private homes or apartment complexes if the costs and benefits were tied to the individual meter like a mortgage is tied to the real property. Seeing that our legislature could find millions to buy canal bottoms from Lauratella in Jefferson parish being a nuisance and cost, when you and I would instead of being compensated would be charged if a tire was thrown on our lot, legislation for large Entergy might be handled in blinding speed if they only desired it.
That said the public service commission model with its professional staff to evaluate Big Energy’s proposals for appropriateness has resulted in some of the lowest electricity costs in the nation while saving us from our neighbors outrageous “wholesale pass though billing of unimaginable amounts” and total loss of power for days…..for a freeze, Driving drug innovation the NIH has billions for research grants and in conjunction we have public research institutions of which LSU is an example from Pennington,its main campus to its medical school doing research…While we have Demco, Entergy and others when you have only one supplier to you home its a monopoly. Its the same when a certain drug is the best for you. Medicare negotiating the price is only a portion of the solution. So for ESTABLISHED drugs costs the governmental model of one of Louisiana’s few exceptional examples is the Public Service Commission where they evaluate rates of return and costs with experts blowing though public relations disinformation fed to us the average citizen. Had that entity design been Federally in place for existing drug pricing the worldwide United States public embarrassment of the “Epipen Pen” fiasco and the hardship that was unnecessarily endured, may have been avoided.
Hope this provides some thought of more positive opportunities in really/ appropriately controlling costs while leaving legitimate reasearch opportunities unhindered.
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