The nation’s largest drug lobby, PhRMA, desperate to be included in a sentence in which its “brand” occurs alongside the word “reform”, voted last week to make the price of drugs sold to the government lower. AARP is allowing an offer by drug manufacturers to contribute some $80 billion over the next 10 years to reduce the cost of comprehensive health reform; most of the savings will come courtesy discounting the price of Medicare prescriptions. It appears as though Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a reform architect, was so excited about this, he had to place a press release announcing that he had “secured an $80 billion commitment” from drugmakers.

Chalk up another olive branch to the American healthcare consumer. With the pricetag of healthcare reform in this country being given an arbitrary $1T cost, the $80 billion pledged is only a drop in the proverbial healthcare economic bucket. At this rate, it is hard to imagine the Obama administration making any sort of dent in healthcare reform, at least in the pharmaceutical sector. (Or at least until he finds a way for the middle class healthcare consumer [patient] to access expensive drugs.)

And it’s all going to be photo-opped today. | LINK

UPDATE: PhRMA press release on the event here.

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