Obama Offers Specifics On Final Vote Timing, Follow-On Biologics

At a public town hall meeting in North Carolina, the President suggests late fall, lower exclusivity will feature in the conclusion of the health care debate.

November appears to be the earliest health reform legislation could be signed into law based on the White House's informal deadline expectations for a vote on the bill, comments by President Barack Obama suggest.

Obama pointed to mid-October as the target to have both chambers of Congress vote on legislation during a July 29 town hall meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina.

"We won't even vote on [a health reform bill] probably until the end of September or the middle of October," Obama said at the town hall meeting, noting that bills were still emerging from various Congressional committees.

Developments In D.C. Spur Reform Advocates

Obama's comments came the same day as two separate developments took place in Washington that benefit Democrats' chances of passing health reform this year.

First, the House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., reached a deal with more moderate-to-conservative members of his committee--Blue Dog Democrats--to move forward with the markup of the House tri-committee bill, America's Affordable Health Choices Act (HR 3200).

Chairman Emeritus John Dingell, D-Mich., reprised his role from the 1993-1994 reform effort as a key negotiator within the committee. During the Clinton Administration push, Dingell came up one vote short from being able to report the bill out of Energy & Commerce when he was Chairman.

"Squeezing out that last vote was as impossible a thing I've ever done," Dingell said July 22 of his previous experience at a policy briefing hosted by Roll Call.

The Blue Dog deal almost certainly assures the House bill will be voted out of the full committee. The committee is scheduled to resume markup of the bill on July 30, according to members. As part of the deal, a full House vote will not take place until September when members return from the month-long August recess.

Second, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., announced that the Congressional Budget Office had scored the current draft committee bill at costing less than $900 bil. over 10 years and would cover 95% of the population. Earlier versions of the bill had come in at well over $1 trillion.

While the vitally important CBO score provides a boost to reformers, there are a number of stumbling bocks that could lay ahead for bipartisan negotiators on the Finance Committee, including revolt from influentials within their own ranks.

Liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans have been less than enthusiastic with the progress that has been reportedly made by the more moderate members from both parties. Those battles could be delayed until the Senate conference process.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., says his top priority is getting 60 votes on a health reform bill that would defeat a filibuster; Democrats--and independents who vote with them--have 60 seats in the Senate. However, Senators Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Robert Byrd, D-W.V., have missed most of the votes this year due to serious illness leaving 58 votes--two short.

Still, a health reform bill represents a higher order of magnitude when compared to the other votes the two Senators have missed up to this point.

Obama Points To FOBs To Lower Rx Drug Costs

The Energy & Commerce deal and the Finance Committee CBO score provided a positive backdrop for Obama's town hall meeting, where he once again said drug manufacturers could do better than the $80 bil. deal they agreed to with the White House that would help cut the Medicare Part D donut hole in half (Also see "Obama Reiterates Desire To Get "Better Deal" From Drug Firms In Health Reform" - Pink Sheet, 28 Jul, 2009.).

This time Obama focused on follow-on biologics and made it sound like the biotech industry may not end up with the kind of deal it is publicly supporting.

Obama noted that the US overpays for prescription drugs by 77% when compared to the rest of the world, saying only 25-30% was due to R&D while the rest was because drug makers can "get away with it."

He said part of the solution is generic substitution and urged that the public "pay attention" to the debate over data exclusivity for innovator products in Congress.

Obama inferred that the White House would fight any final provision giving biotech manufacturers 12 years of data exclusivity, noting that such a long period of exclusivity was being supported by drug manufacturers.

The administration has argued that seven years of exclusivity is generous.

-Ramsey Baghdadi ([email protected])