Make that shocked, shocked. “We are disappointed . . . by today’s vote,” PhRMA said in a statement following Saturday’s House health-care vote. ”While well intentioned [!], the bill . . . would have the unintended consequences [sic] of killing tens of thousands of jobs in our industry . . .”
As I have argued before, it just doesn’t get any stupider than this. Having made an unenforceable $80 billion deal with the White House, having spent upwards of $130 million on advertising in favor of health-care socialism, having been blind all this time to the reality that they are in an ideological battle in which the Left has painted a bullseye on them: PhRMA now just cannot believe that the Beltway Left would view them as both a piggy bank and an obstacle blocking their fundamental goal of centralizing health care, health-care research, and health-care lobbying in the vast monster soon to be known as GosHealth.
The comedy highlight, of course, is the plaintive cry about “killing tens of thousands of jobs in our industry.” Did PhRMA believe that the $80 billion deal would have increased such employment? Did it not occur to them that the $80 billion inevitably would come to be an opening bid? Does PhRMA believe that the Pelosi/Waxman axis gives a hoot about PhRMA employment? Does PhRMA believe that Mr. Obama would veto a bill violating his earlier promises? This utter unreality is really quite amazing. But not as amazing as the salaries these guys are paid to pursue their own destruction, and ours.
– Benjamin Zycher is a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute.