Doughnuts For Dorgan: Drug Reimportation Killed In Deal That Might Get Cheaper Drugs For Seniors

Ryan Grim
HuffPost

President Obama and the Senate leadership can't whip up the votes necessary to pass a public option or even a Medicare buy-in compromise, but they didn't have any trouble persuading 30 Democrats to vote against prescription drug reimportation Tuesday night -- thus preserving the deal cut between the Senate Finance Committee, the White House and Big Pharma.

The amendment's sponsor, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), was asked after the vote if Democratic leadership opposed his amendment in order to preserve the deal.

"Well, and they apparently did," said Dorgan. "The last seven days, we've seen a lot of votes stripped away. What did we get, 51 votes tonight for my amendment? I believe seven days ago we had sufficient votes to pass it, but I think what is happening in the intervening period is other things developed. It's a great disappointment because it seems to me very hard to do health care reform without doing something about the escalating prices for prescription drugs."

(More here.)