House GOP Releases White House Emails Detailing Health Law Deals
The communications, which were gathered by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, offer an inside look at how the White House struck a deal with the pharmaceutical industry to win support for the health care law.
The Associated Press: House GOP Releases Documents On Health Care Deals
The White House played political hardball with drug industry honchos to get a 2009 deal that helped keep health care overhaul legislation from bogging down in Congress, according to internal emails released Thursday by House Republicans. Obtained from the industry by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the emails and documents shed light on the saga of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul as its fortunes shifted back and forth in Congress (Alonso-Zaldivar, 5/31).
The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire: Emails Describe Deal-Making On Obama Health Bill
Newly released emails give an inside look at how the White House struck a deal with the pharmaceutical industry in 2009 to get support for the health bill that ultimately passed the next year (Mundy, 5/31).
Politico: Report: W.H. Pushed Hard For PhRMA Health Reform Deal
The Obama administration aggressively pursued the pharmaceutical industry to make a deal in support of health care reform legislation in mid-2009, according to a series of emails released Thursday by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee (Haberkorn, 6/1).
CQ HealthBeat: GOP Report Details PhRMA-White House Dealmaking Over Health Law
A 12-page memorandum House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans released on Thursday offers a detailed look at 2009 closed-door negotiations between the White House and the drug industry that culminated in it supporting the health care law and agreeing to $80 billion in discounts and other givebacks to help fund the measure. Republicans said their account of the negotiations, pieced together from emails exchanged between officials at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and the White House, contradicts claims President Obama made during the 2008 election campaign that he would conduct health overhaul negotiations in the open (Reichard, 5/31).
The Hill: GOP Releases New Documents On White House Deal With PhRMA
House Republicans released a detailed account Thursday of the negotiations over healthcare reform between the White House and the pharmaceutical industry. Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee have been investigating the $80 billion deal among the Obama administration, Senate Democrats and the drug industry's leading trade group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) (Baker, 5/31).
Roll Call: House GOP Releases Documents From Health Care Probe
The documents reveal new details about a pact that is widely known, but they offer a close look at the transactional process of legislative sausage-making. The documents primarily come from the point of view of employees and lobbyists at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and they largely consist of PhRMA's impressions of what White House officials were doing to pressure them into an agreement. For instance, White House officials told PhRMA that Obama would announce support for a policy opposed by the pharmaceutical industry in his weekly radio address, and internal emails suggested the White House might be dangling that possibility as a way to pressure the sector to agree to a deal more quickly, according to a June 10 email from Bryant Hall, a top lobbyist for the industry (Strong, 5/31).
Bloomberg: Drugmakers Vowed To Campaign For Health Law, Memos Show
Drugmakers led by Pfizer Inc. agreed to run a "very significant public campaign" bankrolling political support for the 2010 health-care law, including TV ads, while the Obama administration promised to block provisions opposed by drugmakers, documents released by Republicans show. The internal memos and e-mails for the first time unveil the industry's plan to finance positive TV ads and supportive groups, along with providing $80 billion in discounts and taxes that were included in the law. The administration has previously denied the existence of a deal involving political support (Armstrong, 5/31).