Health Care Reform

Fat Paydays For Key Players On Both Sides Of Health Care Debate

Justin Elliott | March 18, 2010, 2:55PM

Key players in the year-long fight over health care reform -- including heavyweights like PhRMA's Billy Tauzin and Karen Ignagni of America's Health Insurance Plans -- rake in huge annual salaries, according to tax filings.

New IRS rules require non-profits, including trade associations representing health care stakeholders, to disclose more salary information than ever before, a development first reported on by Roll Call.

So TPMmuckraker decided to take a look at what the lobbyists and leaders of these organizations make for a day's work.

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Pay-For-Delay

Reid's Latest Thorny Issue On Health-Care Bill: Pay-For-Delay

Zachary Roth | December 8, 2009, 1:58PM

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI)

Here's an interesting window into the legislative sausage-making process - and a classic example, among countless others, of the way in which Senate leaders working on health-care reform are having to walk a tightrope between well-meaning policy goals and crude political imperatives.

As we reported last week, Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI) has sponsored a measure designed to crack down on "pay-for-delay" deals by pharmaceutical companies, in which the maker of a brand-name drug pays a generic to hold off on marketing its cheaper drug, thereby preserving the brand-name's monopoly. This textbook anti-competitive tactic is hugely valuable to drug-makers, because it essentially allows them to buy more protection than their patent confers. But by keeping cheaper generic drugs off the market, it costs consumers billions -- and those costs fall disproportionately on the uninsured.

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PhRMA

Drug-Makers Paying Off Competitors To Keep Cheap Generics Off Market

Zachary Roth | December 2, 2009, 3:07PM

Republicans and their allies in the business community talk a good game about the virtues of free-market competition. But, as we've seen in the debate over the public option, that stance often goes out the window when corporate profits are at stake.

And now we've got another example -- one of the sleaziest and most blatantly self-serving yet.

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Frontier Foundation

Rep. Buyer Flounders In CBS Interview About His Iffy Foundation

Justin Elliott | November 12, 2009, 8:50AM

Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN) on CBS Evening News, aired 11/11/09

Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN) sat down for an interview with CBS Evening News about his charity, but struggled to answer basic questions about the Frontier Foundation, which collects big donations from industry sources trying to influence Buyer but gives out no money for its putative mission of supporting Indiana students.

Buyer abruptly ended the interview with CBS, which aired last night, literally rushing out of his seat to make a meeting.

Among the questions he couldn't answer: why the foundation, which as recently as last month shared space with Buyer's campaign office in Monticello, Indiana, no longer has a physical address

"I was so focused on making sure that we were legal, that I probably didn't pay as close attention as I should have on, quote, appearances," the congressman said.

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Steve Buyer

PhRMA Gave Big To GOP Rep's Iffy Foundation, Hired His Son, Kept On Giving

Justin Elliott | October 28, 2009, 6:42PM

Ryan Buyer and his father, Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN)

Drug industry umbrella group PhRMA, which has given $200,000 to given Rep. Steve Buyer's Frontier Foundation, in June 2008 hired a director of the foundation as its federal affairs manager, TPMmuckraker has confirmed.

The name of that director? Ryan Buyer, son of the Indiana congressman.

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