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Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Re-Visiting Drug Re-Importation Before Dorgan Re-Tires (Updated)

At the tail end of my last post, I tacked on this rather throw-away comment:
I know there is a lot of speculation that Dorgan's retirement expresses disgruntlement over his drug re-importation amendment going down in flames due to Obama's pre-emptive Pharma deal. I have a feeling drug re-importation will re-appear as a separate measure after Obama signs healthcare reform. That would be both a real crowd pleaser and a gift to the Base (not to mention being good policy) coming in to mid-terms -- that, plus a sense of a jobs turnaround are crucial by November if you ask me -- and Dorgan was making noises earlier today that he considers re-importation to be achievable before his retirement. Dorgan may indeed feel disgruntled about the debased state of the Senate, but I just don't think the setback on drug re-importation is anything like the whole story.

In the Moot for that post, reader "Thanatz" responds to my declaration "I have a feeling drug re-importation will re-appear as a separate measure after Obama signs healthcare reform":
Whence comes this "feeling"? I tend to agree with you that modifications of the current Senate bill sold as minor fixes after adoption (assuming the ineffectual House gets that version rammed down their throats basically as-is) would probably be more conducive to progressive interests and Dem seat retention than simply rejecting the bill as is, but I simply fail to see where anyone could find any evidence for the hope that any such fixes would actually happen in the world we inhabit. Given the howling that would inevitably result from the very same "centrist" "Dems" and obstructionist repugs that have gifted us this shit sandwich, I can in no way fathom why ORahma would not get the fuck outta HCR-Dodge as soon as the 60th vote was tallied. The Senate bill is gift to the base, or at least that's what they'll sell it as.

Well, I'm just going to set to the side what you may be insinuating with the silly rewriting of Obama as ORahma, since I have no truck with the weird world of left Rahmsputinism, nor do I agree with the self-defeating suggestion that corporations are Obama's "true base" even if I grant -- as every sensible person of the left surely does by now -- that corporate-militarism has debased our democracy beyond recognition and, one fears, beyond redemption.

But, to your substantial point about where my "feeling" is coming from that there is a real and not only wishful hope for a re-visitation of the drug re-importation legislation any time soon when Dorgan failed to get it tacked onto the Healthcare Reform so recently:

On the Randi Rhodes Show today Dorgan said that not only was he not retiring because of the scuppering of Drug Re-Importation but that he was going to be in office for a whole year during which he fully intended to revisit this issue and with the expectation of success. (Regrettably I cannot find a transcript but I'm sure there's an .mp3 somewhere.)

Over on TPM there is an article that contains a transcript of an exchange with Dorgan on the Ed Shultz show that takes up similar themes, not to mention some interesting possibilities otherwise (cabinet post, anyone?):
Dorgan fought for an amendment the Obama administration helped to kill during the health care debate, and Schultz asked if that left him with a "bad taste." "I'm not going to tell you I've got a bad taste in my mouth," Dorgan said. "I'm going to get that amendment passed ... and save the American consumers $100 billion." Schultz asked if Dorgan would consider a spot on the Obama Cabinet. "It hasn't been offered yet, Ed," Dorgan said. [emphases added --d]

It is easy enough to dismiss this as happy-talk or Dorgan making nicey-nice, but it simply didn't play that way to me, and I see little evidence that Dorgan has been circumspect about his disappointments hitherto.

Also, though again I daresay this is easily dismissed as Mouseketeer Roll-Call Charlie Brown running to kick Lucy's football stuff on my part -- I do love it how half the time I'm derided as Captain Bringdown and the other half I'm derided as the Happy Hippy -- the fact is that Axelrod among other Obama Administration figures have actually explicitly indicated that they do mean to revisit the issue themselves as for example here.

The fact is that I think Obama made his campaign promise to allow us to bargain with Pharma for lower prices because he believed it (like every other non-insane non-asshole believes it), and I think Obama then pre-emptively took it off the table because he figured he had to do so in order to have a chance to succeed in any kind of healthcare reform unlike the seven Presidents who have preceded him in this ambition and especially given the current structural contraints of the Senate.

I don't agree that revisiting this notion would be going back on the deal with Pharma, nor that this deal followed by a revisitation sequel would properly be regarded as breaking his campaign promise. I also disagree that it is quite so hard to circumvent obstructionism by Republican-empowered Conservadems on a straight-sell of drug importation (it's more competition! it'll lower costs for seniors!) than when it's bundled together with a bazillion other provisions as in healthcare reform more generally.

That is to say, it is easier to sell a good squirt of mustard you can put on your shit sandwich than it is to sell a shit sandwich with mustard on it.

I am far from saying this is a sure thing -- but Obama needs to give his Base some happy pills for mid-term turnout and he shows every sign of knowing it. This looks like a good path for many reasons. By all means let the cries of nth dimensional chess and Obamaboticism commence, I'm just pointing out that my "feeling" does have a basis other than fancy, in case you were wondering.

UPDATE:

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