Bureaucracy, Money

PhRMA poised to fight Obama plans

November 14, 2008 — 11:24am ET |
By Tracy Staton

Look out, Barack Obama. Big Pharma is preparing to launch its first blitz against your healthcare plans.

The country’s biggest pharma lobbying group–PhRMA–is readying a
major public relations campaign supporting “free market health care.”
The multimillion-dollar campaign includes national television
advertising, scheduled to air for the first time next week. It’s all
designed to head off President-elect Obama’s expected campaign for
Medicare to negotiate prices for drugs used by its beneficiaries.

Lots of companies stand to lose if the new administration really
does reform healthcare. But drugmakers may be closest to the line of
fire. According to the Washington Times, pharma could see a
$30 billion reduction in revenues if the government starts to negotiate
drug prices as many other countries do.

PhRMA’s push won’t directly attack Obama’s plans; with such a
popular president-elect, such an attack could backfire. Instead, the
association’s ads will take a more oblique approach: “We’re going to do
an ad campaign designed to make people aware of the importance of
preserving your free-market health care system,” PhRMA’s Ken Johnson
told the Times. Coming soon to a TV screen near you.

– read the Washington Times article

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