SOME SERIOUS CONFUSION HERE

The bargaining table is not a holy altar. Senator Carper, (D. Delaware) confuses a poker game played with baseball bats with a harpist playing "feelings" while weeping in front of a picture of the baby jesus.**

I was not involved in negotiations with PhRMA but I believe that the administration was, obviously PhRMA was, and I presume this committee was involved in some way in those negotiations.

And what PhRMA agreed to do through those negotiations is to pay about
80 billion dollars over 10 years to help fill up half the donut hole. That's my understanding. And they are prepared to go forward and to honor that commitment. As I understand it, the commitment from our colleague Senator Nelson would basically double what was negotiated with PhRMA.

And whether you like PhRMA or not -- remember I talked earlier today in our opening statements, I talked about four core values, and one of those is the golden rule, treat other people the way I want to be treated?

I'll tell you -- if someone negotiated a deal with me and I agreed to put up say, 80 dollars or 80 million dollars or 80 billion dollars and then you came back and said to me a couple of weeks later -- no no, I know you agreed to do 80 billion and I know you were willing to help support through an advertising campaign this particular -- not even this particular bill, just the idea of generic health care reform? No, we're going to double -- we're going to double what you agreed in those negotiations to do. That's not the way -- that's not what I consider treating people the way I'd want to be treated.

That just doesn't seem right to me.

Interestingly enough it *seems totally right* to me. I mean, that's what bargains are--you make them, and you renegotiate them if you can. Say, if you get a better offer. Until the deal's done--signed, sealed, delivered and paid for you can usually return anything from a blender to a car. You can return things because they were sold to you under false pretenses, didn't belong to the seller in the first place, or are broken. You can refuse to be a party to negotiations taken in bad faith, or that are taken on behalf of others who didn't get invited to the table. Not only can you do that--its incumbent on you to do that. The free market gods told me so.

h/t Campaign Silo

** Carper seems to think that THIS isn't satire.