Reform groups say vast spending, and the threat of a lot more being poured into ads against the administration, has helped drug firms ensure there will be no cap on the prices they charge for medicines.
“It’s a total victory for the health insurance industry,” said Steffie Woolhander, a professor of medicine at Harvard University and cofounder of Physicians for a National Health Program. “What the bill has done is use the coercive power of the state to force people to hand their money over to a private entity which is the private insurance industry. That is not what people were promised.”
The health industry permeates the process in other ways. At Baucus’s side, drafting much of the wording of the reform, was Liz Fowler, a Senate committee counsel whose last position was vice-president of the US’ largest health insurer, Wellpoint.
Baucus declines to discuss donations but told Montana’s Missoulian newspaper this year that “no one gets special treatment.”
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