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Senate Finance Committee is Officially Stonewalling Mediaite

by Tommy Christopher | 6:04 pm, September 4th, 2009

» 2 comments

FE_DA_080617senate For 73 days now, I have been investigating the $80 billion deal struck between the PhRMA lobby, the White House, and the Senate Finance Committee. Specifically, I’ve been trying to find out why the White House and the Finance Committee didn’t disclose a monumentally important fact when I asked them about it in June, only to have it leaked by the PhRMA lobby in early August, and confirmed by the White House.

I’ve also asked several questions about the origins of a memo that was published by Huffington Post, purportedly containing details of a July 7 meeting between the 3 parties, and for a list of attendees of that meeting.

While the White House says it is still working to fulfill my request, the Finance Committee, after nearly daily followup by me, has taken a different route. A staffer from the committee confirmed to me, in an extraordinary admission, that both of the committee’s press secretaries have issued a standing order to blow me off whenever I call. Specifically, they have been instructed to tell me that Jennifer Donohue and Erin Shields are not in, regardless of the truth of that statement.

Why is this story important? The White House entered into a bad deal with PhRMA, one that was brokered by Senator Max Baucus’ committee. Baucus is considered, by many, to be compromised by the amount of cash he has accepted from the healthcare and pharmaceutical lobby, and his ties to lobbyists. The deal gets worse and worse as more of it is revealed.

The fact that when asked about the biggest problem with the deal (the fact that it came with a provision that no other concessions would be sought), the White House didn’t know and the Finance Committee wasn’t saying, tells me that perhaps the President has turned too much control of this process over to bad faith negotiators. The fact that the committee concealed this fact from me, a representative of the press, is unacceptable. If that fact had been known just after the deal was struck, perhaps something could have been done to improve it. In any case, the people asked, and had a right to an answer.

It is the duty of the press to hold our leaders to account, and it is the duty of those leaders to respond to us. We represent the American people as surely as they do. When I called today, and the staffer who answered the phone was forced to lie to me, all of you were lied to as well.

Big Pharma, Health Care, Health Care Reform, healthcare reform, pharma, Senate Finance Committee, Tommy Christopher

http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe-Callan/100000200979966 Joe Callan

The lack of transparency is no surprise. Since January 19th, it’s been considered increasingly un-American to ask *any* questions involving government spending and the health care sector.

Mr. Christopher, keep up updated–and thank you for your work in trying to get the straight answers from our less-than-verbose public servants.

It appears that instead of answering legitimate, informed questions from qualified individuals with press credentials, they’d prefer to respond to the ludicrous fringe-right attacks while pretending that those misinformed fringers are the *only* individuals who are concerned with the dealings of our federal government.
libra blue

“It is the duty of the press to hold our leaders to account, and it is the duty of those leaders to respond to us. We represent the American people as surely as they do. When I called today, and the staffer who answered the phone was forced to lie to me, all of you were lied to as well.”

@Tommy, Were you really surprised? I guess it depends on what your definition of “duty” is. The problem is that the MSM is unwilling to hold Obama and his thugs accountable for anything. That is why he is getting away with so many questionable acts without being challenged by the MSM. Obama has always had lobbyists ties so it is not surprising that this is happening.

The promise of transparency and accountability ended the minute Obama took the oath of office. His cronies are probably still trying to figure out how to make certain that Obama doesn’t take any heat from another bad “deal,” then they might get back to you.

If this “deal” shows Obama in a bad light then the majority of the MSM is not interested in talking about it, they are much too busy covering the death, funeral, and burial of Michael Jackson to be bothered with this. For instance, Anderson wasted two LIVE hours on Jackson’s burial last night.

You must be one of the only journalists outside of FNC willing to put your professional life on the line by questioning the Obama administration about their shady deals. I hope you realize that you are part of a dying breed. I wish you the best of luck, you are going to need it!