Reply #14: This was not a rumor, this was confirmed by the deputy White House chief of staff

[flyarm]

so by what you are saying, should we read everything out of this White House as propaganda???????? Because that is what you are essentially saying! This was confirmed by deputy White House chief of staff, Jim Messina!



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/health/policy/06insur...

August 6, 2009
White House Affirms Deal on Drug Cost
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

snip:
In response, the industry successfully demanded that the White House explicitly acknowledge for the first time that it had committed to protect drug makers from bearing further costs in the overhaul. The Obama administration had never spelled out the details of the agreement.

“We were assured: ‘We need somebody to come in first. If you come in first, you will have a rock-solid deal,’ ” Billy Tauzin, the former Republican House member from Louisiana who now leads the pharmaceutical trade group, said Wednesday. “Who is ever going to go into a deal with the White House again if they don’t keep their word? You are just going to duke it out instead.”


snip:
A deputy White House chief of staff, Jim Messina, confirmed Mr. Tauzin’s account of the deal in an e-mail message on Wednesday night.

“The president encouraged this approach,” Mr. Messina wrote. “He wanted to bring all the parties to the table to discuss health insurance reform.”

The new attention to the agreement could prove embarrassing to the White House, which has sought to keep lobbyists at a distance, including by refusing to hire them to work in the administration.