Editorial: Revolving door keeps on spinning

Friday, Dec. 17, 2004 | 9:07 a.m.

This week the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the lobbying arm for the nation's top drug makers, announced that Rep. Billy Tauzin would be the group's president. The Louisiana Republican, who is retiring from Congress, will be heading an industry group that isn't held in high regard by the public, due mainly to the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs and recent concerns about the safety of some drugs. "This industry understands that it's got a problem," Tauzin told The New York Times in an interview. "It has to earn the trust and confidence of consumers again."

Now that's rich -- and ironic. If drug makers truly were wanting to gain back the trust of the public, the last person they would have hired is a consummate Washington insider like Tauzin. It was Tauzin, with the support of the Bush administration and House Republican leaders, who shielded these companies when legislation was drafted to create a prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients. Democrats and many Republicans in Congress wanted to give the federal government the ability to negotiate with drug companies to set prices for the new program, which would have resulted in lower prices for consumers. But Tauzin, a principal author of the drug benefit bill and chairman of the House committee that regulated drug makers, did their bidding instead of the public's and made sure the pro-consumer provision went nowhere. The net result is that seniors wil l pay higher prices for drugs, thanks in large part to Tauzin.

Tauzin's reward was receiving the plum job in the drug industry's lobbying group. He won't say how much he's being paid, but we do know that he declined an offer to be president of the Motion Picture Association of America, a job that would have paid him more than $1 million a year. So the revolving door in Washington, where members of Congress and the White House staff can cash in on their positions and connections they've made with the industries they oversee, is alive and well. Of course, this revolving door is also what deepens public cynicism about how Washington works. It is also why, in the case of the drug industry, we're not optimistic that Congress will actually do something meaningful to rein in the out-of-control cost of drugs.