[Ip-health] Health Reform in Limbo, PhRMA's Tauzin Quits

[robert weissman]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/health/policy/12pharma.html?hpw


  Health Reform in Limbo, Top Drug Lobbyist Quits

By DAVID KIRKPATRICK and DUFF WILSON
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/duff_wilson/i=
ndex.html?inline=3Dnyt-per>
Published: February 11, 2010

Billy Tauzin
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/billy_tauzin/=
index.html?inline=3Dnyt-per>,
one of the highest paid lobbyists in Washington, is resigning as
president of the pharmaceutical industry=92s trade group amid internal
disputes over its pact with the White House to trade political support
for favorable terms in the proposed health care overhaul.

As the industry=92s top lobbyist, Mr. Tauzin brokered the deal last summer
with the White House and Max Baucus
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/max_baucus/in=
dex.html?inline=3Dnyt-per>,
chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to limit the drug industry=92s
total costs under the proposed health care overhaul to $80 billion over
10 years.

The announcement of Mr. Tauzin=92s resignation is the latest unexpected
fallout of the Republican upset in the Massachusetts Senate race, which
abruptly transformed the health care overhaul from a near inevitability
to a daunting cause.

Like almost every other seasoned Washington player, Mr. Tauzin bet the
health care overhaul was an unstoppable train, so he wagered it was
better to get on board early =97 only to watch it come to a screeching halt=
.

The trade group issued a news release on Thursday night confirming Mr.
Tauzin=92s departure, effective June 30. In the statement, Mr. Tauzin, a
former House representative who is 66 and has survived intestinal cancer
<http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/cancer/overview.html?inlin=
e=3Dnyt-classifier>,
said, =93My health is excellent, and I look forward to exciting new
challenges ahead.=94

Under his direction, the trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA, backed up its end of the deal
by spending more than $100 million on ads to promote the overhaul.

But after the reform stalled, some industry leaders felt the trade group
had gone too far giving concessions and could lose on some important
legislative issues without gaining the political protection it had sought.

The nature of the group=92s deal with the White House was initially
undisclosed by Mr. Tauzin and the Obama administration. But when
Congressional liberals began to press to take more out of the industry =97
potentially by allowing importation of cheaper drugs from Canada or
decreasing the industry=92s years of exclusive rights to biological drugs
=97 Mr. Tauzin publicly accused the White House of failing to hold up its
end of a quid pro quo.

The arrangement, confirmed by a White House official and later in
Congress, became a source of controversy among liberals who faulted the
administration for giving away too much and Republicans who had
traditionally been supported by the pharmaceutical industry.

In an interview with The New York Times in July, Mr. Tauzin said, =93Our
goal, I described it almost five years ago when I took over, has been to
end this business of PhRMA having enemies. Disease was our only enemy.
And to have a nonpartisan organization. And we got there just in time.=94

With Mr. Tauzin in charge, the trade group donated more money to
Democrats running for office and added former Democratic officials to
its lobbying forces.

Mr. Tauzin later said the White House had asked him to negotiate over
the health care overhaul because, =93They wanted a big player to come in
and set the bar for everybody else.=94

=93We were assured: =91We need somebody to come in first. If you come in
first, you will have a rock-solid deal,=92 =94 he added. And, under pressur=
e
from his own board, he warned the White House not to back away.

Kathleen Jaeger, president of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association,
which sometimes crossed swords with PhRMA, was surprised Thursday when
informed of Mr. Tauzin=92s plans to resign. =93He has done a fantastic job
for the brand pharmaceutical industry,=94 she said. =93Billy is a master of
politics and policy.=94

Officials for the White House declined to comment.

Christopher A. Viehbacher, a board member of PhRMA and chief executive
of Sanofi-Aventis
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/sanofi_aventis/index=
.html?inline=3Dnyt-org>,
said in an interview on Wednesday that he still held hope the health
care package could pass Congress. =93The most important thing to me in
this whole process is that PhRMA was not the bad guy,=94 he said, adding,
=93It has not been without its political cost because it is actually
difficult to be bipartisan in all of this.=94

Mr. Tauzin was a House representative for Louisiana for a
quarter-century, first as a Democrat and then after switching to the
Republican Party
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republ=
ican_party/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-org>
in 1995. He served as chairman of the House Commerce Committee when it
recommended expanding drug benefits to older Medicare
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopic=
s/medicare/index.html?inline=3Dnyt-classifier>
recipients.

Leaving for the PhRMA job after that, Mr. Tauzin drew some criticism for
his Medicare work in Congress, but he insisted the PhRMA job had not
been offered to him until he had decided to leave Congress and accepted
another job, with the motion picture trade association.

Mr. Tauzin announced his new job and left the House with a year left in
his term. In 2007, the Democrats added a new provision to the House
ethics code known as the Tauzin rule, which specifically bars a lawmaker
from negotiating deals for future employment while still on the job.

Mr. Tauzin said he took the PhRMA job after he learned he was diagnosed
with cancer.

In the PhRMA statement, he said, =93In January 2005, after a full year
successfully battling a killer cancer, I was given a second chance at
life, and appropriately chose to commit my next five years to the
lifesaving work of the people whose miracle medicines had just saved my
own.=94 He said he was leaving after fulfilling his five and a half year
commitment to the job.

Gardiner Harris contributed reporting.