WHITE HOUSE CONFIRMS DRUG DEAL

White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion. $80 billion over 10 years. $8 billion per year, which may or may not be much of a burden on the drug corporations.

Don't know how it works. Reducing profit on a prescription from 300% to 150%? Or can a drug company say it was going to charge $50 for each pill of a new product, but will charge $35, saving patients all that money? But apparently this deal is supposed to prevent the government from negotiating prices for 10 years and will prevent importation from Canada for 10 years.

It's hard to see that this is a good deal, let alone the question of what could otherwise be achieved in a 10 year period. A risky arrangement. And will this stop hospitals from charging $30 for one aspirin?

If either of my readers can enlighten me, I would appreciate it.

P.S. The NYTimes reports "Congressional Democrats said Thursday that they intended to push the Obama administration to back away from its deal with the drug industry to cap its share of the costs in a health care overhaul." It seems that this deal was negotiated by the White House and the Senate Finance Committee. But several Senators have spoken out against it.