Chicago corruption on display for all to see.

Worst president ever!

It's not a corrupt sell out when The One does it. It's a principled negotiation to achieve his domestic policy objectives.

The fact that he's selling out one part of his constituency in favor of multi-billion dollar industry interests is beside the point. The act that we cannot see the difference is merely evidence of his superior intellect and nuanced understanding.

Yep, good ol' Chicago style....and hey Prez, we'll toss in $150 million for your dis-information information campaign.

FYI, William Daley, of the Chicago Democratic Machine, sits on the Board of Abbott Laboratories, one of the world's biggest pharmacutical companies.

You misunderstand. It's not disinformation. Obama is simply speaking with a Chicago accent. He was saying "Dis Information". In Chicago the TH is pronounced as D. Dese, Dem, Dose, Dere, Dis.

Really quite innocent.

how convenient, and frankly blatantly disingenuous, of you to end the quote right when it comes to the part of what the White House got in return.

A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week.

The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return.

It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government's leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada -- and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements.

In exchange, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) agreed to cut $80 billion in projected costs to taxpayers and senior citizens over ten years. Or, as the memo says: "Commitment of up to $80 billion, but not more than $80 billion."

$80 billion in reduced costs to taxpayers.

Let me repeat that - $80 Billion in reduced costs to taxpayers.

And you know it matters, Hugh - that's why you left it out. it destroys your "smokey back-room deal" BS right out of the water.

Tsk tsk.

It's quid pro quo - a trade. It's called negotiation.

Yep - as a liberal I'm outraged that the Obama administration has negotiated a deal that saves taxpayers $80 billion. How dare they do that?

Oh, it's their job.

Never mind.
Vic

"Yep - as a liberal I'm outraged that the Obama administration has negotiated a deal that saves taxpayers $80 billion. How dare they do that?"

So Barry's "promise" of "no secret deals behind closed doors" is okay with you, Vic? How about those same companies shelling out $150 million for Barry's "political purposes?". That okay as well?

Or are you used to Your Savior breaking promises so often now that it doesn't matter?

Vic, $80B is like pissing in the Ocean. It doesn't make a difference when you're talking about the $2.2T that are spent on Health Care each year.

And That is up to $80B. Are we to expect that to be like the $100M that Obama promised to cut from the White House budget, but failed to do in the 90 day time-line he promised?

Zero Dollars happens to be included in "Up to $80B"

Hermie, what is your implication of Mayor Daley being on the Board of Directors of Abbott Laboratories? Do you mean to impugn Mayor Daley, Abbott Laboratories, or both?
just askin'

I'm Sorry that's $80B over ten years so that would be out of $22T not $2.2T

Congrats Obama won a promise for between 0.0% and 0.3% cut in costs.

Color me unimpressed.

Time out while Vic goes and drinks some more kook aid.

The most transparent president ever.

You can see right through him.

Meanwhile if we take the generally accepted estimate that health care is approximately 1/6 of the economy and the the purpose of Obama's plan is to reduce costs then we can expect that growth in this part of the economy would optimally be held to zero.

Given that Health Care has been outpacing the economy, growing between 4 and 6% per year, you are then eliminating 17% to 20% of future economic growth. You could see what would have been a 2% growth rate dropped to a 1.66% to 1.6% growth rate.

All hail Obama, the economic genius that will save our economy by freezing growth.

Heck, who are we fooling. If you want to add on a government bureaucracy that will suck up 20-30% of the costs (it did in the cars for clunkers program) then you are going to see an economic disaster as you see 17% of the economy shrunk to 12% with the difference going to government overhead.

FYI, Hermie, Abbott Laboratories closed down a 1,000 employee plant in Daley's and Obama's Chicago just before the election, sending the jobs to Ireland. Abbott is a global company, with less than half of its business coming from the U.S.A. It has been moving the stockholder's money out of America to where the growth of healthcare is located for some years, and to where the governments let's them keep more of the earned profits. Obama's efforts to push America to a single-payer system that will destroy the American healthcare system, eliminate capitalism in one-seven of the economy, and grow a new intrusive bureaucracy of leeches on the taxpayer. That will affect that Abbott Laboratories less and less, as it leaves and leaves. Also, notice that the head of Abbott is not on the list of industry visitors to The White House. Wonder why that is?

Why is anyone treating this worthless deal seriously?

Obama will p*ss on someone's leg, look him in the eye and convince him it's raining.

Obama's words are not worth the teleprompter they're written on.

Obama is a liar. That's all he is...that's all he does.

Lies...all lies. Anyone who trusts anything this man says, does or writes is a fool.