If any single issue crystallizes the defects of Republican rule in
the age of George W. Bush that issue is the Medicare Prescription Drug
Improvement and Modernization Act. (It's also the single issue most
likely to lead to the end of Washington's one-party regime.) Spawned by
a White House under the influence of the pharmaceutical and insurance
industries, rubber-stamped in a Congress bought by lobbyists for those
interests, and imposed on the nation with prevarication, duplicity and
outright bribery, the drug bill represents everything Americans hate
about the federal government today. Within its 400-plus pages, the act
contains something to offend everyone, including a potential majority
of voters in November.
Congressional leaders still proclaim that problems with the new
program will be worked out and smoothed over well before Election Day,
but they know that their political survival is threatened. On Tuesday,
a delegation of some 30 Republican senators attended a closed meeting
with Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and Medicare
administrator Mark McClellan (the older brother of the White House
press secretary) to discuss how to prepare a political defense against
anticipated Democratic attacks against the program. Meanwhile, newly
elected House Majority Leader John Boehner has admitted that the program's inauguration was "a disaster."
After the compromised Scully had performed his part, the Republican
congressional leadership took over. When the bill reached the House
floor, Democrats were not permitted to offer a single substantive
amendment. Roll-call voting on the final bill was held open for three
hours instead of the normal 15 minutes so that DeLay and his deputies
would have extra time to break arms and stuff pockets. At least one
reluctant Republican, Nick Smith of Michigan, who finally voted "yea,"
later said that DeLay -- whose wife was paid by Alexander Strategy
Group -- had both threatened him and offered a $100,000 bribe in the
form of promised campaign contributions to his son, who planned to run
for the father's House seat.
And again, the industry reached inside to fix the process. Billy
Tauzin, the Louisiana Republican who chaired the House Energy and
Commerce Committee and served as the bill's lead sponsor, soon retired
from politics to accept one of the most lucrative jobs in Washington.
The smooth-talking Tauzin became the new president of ... PhRMA!
To Washington insiders, this tawdry chronology is not news. To
voters who rarely see how the legislative sausage is made in the
capital, however, the manufacturing of the hated Medicare drug bill
could prove decisive. They're already angry, and they don't even know
what happened to them yet.
