Markup set to seek information on health bill deals
Plan calls on President Obama and HHS to hand over any documents and communications based on the deals as well as offer up the dates and attendance lists of meetings.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will mark up a Republican resolution Wednesday that would force the White House to bring to light information on backroom deals it made with certain healthcare industries to gain support for the overhaul bill.
The markup comes just hours before President Obama heads to the Capitol to deliver his State of the Union address.
The resolution, proposed by Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, in December, calls on Obama and the Health and Human Services Department to hand over any documents and communications based on the deals as well as offer up the dates of meetings and lists of those in attendance.
The resolution does not have any co-sponsors, but Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has particularly criticized a White House and Senate Finance Committee deal with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Waxman's office did not respond to a request for comment.
PhRMA agreed to an $80 billion plan to help fund the overhaul and close a gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage and in exchange was protected from other cost-cutting attempts throughout Senate consideration of health reform.
The hospital industry cut a $155 billion deal, and unions worked with the White House to soften an excise tax on high-cost health plans.
The resolution singles out the earliest attempt at a deal when groups, including PhRMA, America's Health Insurance Plans, the American Hospital Association and the Service Employees International Union agreed to find $2 trillion in cost-cutting measures to help fund the overhaul. The number never materialized.
Burgess originally wrote Obama asking for more information about the deals in September. The letter points to the Finance Committee markup during the same month when certain amendments, even Democratic ones, were shot down because they disrupted industry deals.
Waxman included in the House overhaul bill a provision that would provide Medicaid discounts on prescription drugs for low-income Medicare beneficiaries. The Finance Committee rejected a similar provision on account of the PhRMA deal.