I was about to post this as a comment to this article, which I found today, when I realized that since it was long off the FP, no one would see my concern. My senators are Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell. They have been exemplary, and WA is lucky to have them. When I received a Kos action alert yesterday telling me to call and say I was “outraged” that they “sided with the pharmaceutical industry” I was outraged not at them, but at Daily Kos. I sent an email back and I’m going to take myself off the Kos action list.
This amendment created a meaningless vote that now is being set up to garner attention and stir up internal Democratic friction. I don’t understand why now and why all the anger and upset. Nothing would have changed because of this amendment, but people are being led to think it could have. Some of what I read yesterday and today would have you believe that if the amendment had passed we would have suddenly had drugs flowing in from Canada. To think that one of my favorite sites, Daily Kos, is stirring up this sort of Dem on Dem fight when we need to focus our firepower on Trump and the GOP sickens me.
And why? For no good reason. Here is something from a source I trust on Facebook:
There's a lot of BS going around about how our Democratic senators are supposedly in league with "Big Phrama"(tm) and that's why they voted against an amendment to a Republican bill laying the groundwork for repealing Obamacare. It's BS. It originally got posted on Jezebel and then went randomly viral, becoming ridiculous outrage porn. This sort of thing is pretty much always BS, and everybody should be skeptical when they see stuff suggesting that honorable and fierce electeds like Patty Murray are doing something nefarious. It's probably BS.
This analysis is mostly stolen from the stalwart [name deleted by me]. It starts with the actual text of the amendment: S.Amdt.178, introduced by Sen. Klobachur, to S.Con.Res.3:
"The Chairman of the Committee on the Budget of the Senate may revise the allocations of a committee or committees, aggregates, and other appropriate levels in this resolution for one or more bills, joint resolutions, amendments, amendments between the Houses, motions, or conference reports relating to lowering prescription drug prices, including through the importation of safe and affordable prescription drugs from Canada by American pharmacists, wholesalers, and individuals with a valid prescription from a provider licensed to practice in the United States, by the amounts provided in such legislation for those purposes, provided that such legislation would not increase the deficit over either the period of the total of fiscal years 2017 through 2021 or the period of the total of fiscal years 2017 through 2026."
Right off the bat, this amendment (which everybody got worked up about) does absolutely nothing. It states that the Chair of the Budget Committee (currently Chuck Grassley) *may* allow subcommittees to consider bills that would lower the prices of prescriptions, including, as an example, re-importation, so long as those budgetary bills do not increase the deficit.
Currently, the Budget Committee chair can already do that. He just chooses not to. This would not direct him to refer to subcommittees this work, but rather would specifically note that he is authorized to, with a specific example.
Now, let's say Grassley decided that the best way to reduce the price of prescriptions, without increasing the deficit, was to weaken regulations on drug manufacturers. This would explicitly allow him to refer that bill to the appropriate subcommittee.
But then again - HE ALREADY HAS THAT AUTHORITY.
This amendment would have done nothing new, but goddamn it sure is getting people on the left into the circular firing squad.
Get it together, folks. This is a distraction. Are you seeing more or less outraged about this, or the kid gloves Jeff Sessions got in his hearings, because he's "nice" and everybody knows him from the Senate gym!? Or the de-funding of Planned Parenthood attempts? Or more than what happened in N.C. when the GOP got Charlotte to repeal their anti-discrimination ordinance in exchange for repealing H.B. 2... And then never repealed H.B. 2? Or Putin's attempt to impose fascism on the United States by blackmailing our next president with videos of him getting peed on by Russian hookers!?
Get it together.
I am not saying the Democrats should never criticize each other, but I do think we should be much more careful now in what controversies we stir up and why. The space, time, and emotional energy being taken up by this issue would have served a much better purpose if replaced by the same anger directed at Trump and the GOP. This issue is all heat but no fire and tarnishes the reputation of my two good senators for no defensible reason.