Reply #22: Look at the Obama plan for HC, the Slate article ties it together...

[slipslidingaway]

and shows how far things were compromised from the original plan.

The 300 billion in savings is mentioned in the Obama plan, but they settled for 80 billion.

:(

http://www.slate.com/id/2224621/

"...Candidate Obama, citing a paper by Roger Hickey, Jeff Cruz, and Dean Baker of the Institute for America's Future, put the savings at $30 billion a year, which over a decade would be roughly twice the $156 billion savings envisioned by the energy and commerce committee. (Hickey, Cruz, and Baker proposed matching not Medicaid drug prices but those negotiated by the more straightforwardly socialist Veterans Administration.) By this reckoning, Tauzin swindled not $76 billion from President Obama but $220 billion. That's nearly half what the House health reform bill expects to raise with its proposed surtax on incomes above $350,000!..."


page 5
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/HealthCareFullPlan.pdf

"...Allow Medicare to negotiate for cheaper drug prices.

The 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug
Improvement and Modernization Act bans the government from negotiating down the prices of
prescription drugs, even though the Department of Veterans Affairs’ negotiation of prescription drug
prices with drug companies has garnered significant savings for taxpayers.32 Barack Obama and Joe
Biden will repeal the ban on direct negotiation with drug companies and use the resulting savings, which
could be as high as $30 billion,33 to further invest in improving health care coverage and quality..."