Who could have foreseen?

Remember that part in the health care debate where the President announced that he had the support of the leaders of pharmaceutical companies to tackle reform and that as a show of good faith they'd be willing to sacrifice $80 billion over 10 years in order to push for reform? In return they got concessions from the White House that everyone pretended weren't agreed to even though there were memos and legislation has essentially borne out that deal.

Wait for it.......it was all a bullshit scam! Who could have foreseen? In return for their pledge to sacrifice $8 billion a year and get their priorities enacted in any reform package, the pharmaceutical companies are going to net nearly $35 billion a year over the next four years....and it'll go up as the years pass. I am shocked. Seriously.

IMS Health, a company that supplies the pharmaceutical companies with sales data, predicts that new health reform legislation -- combined with a projected upswing in the economy -- will result in a net gain of more than $137 billion in total market sales over the next four years. The new assessment was contained in document obtained by the Huffington Post.

Back in March, that same firm projected a compound annual growth rate of -0.1 percent in the period of 2008 through 2013. In October, with the general outlines of health care reform clearly in place, it revised that number to a positive 3.5 percent for over the same period.
...
The structure of health care reform, as IMS goes on to note, will have benefits for the federal government, which could save an estimated $30 billion from 2010 through 2019. ...The real beneficiaries of reform, however, would evidently be the pharmaceutical industry.

Hey, a few nickels fell out their large sack with the dollar sign on it. Be grateful. Just tell yourself the additional 60% in costs we pay for drugs over Canada means we're getting 60% better medicine and getting 60% healthier. Same for the massive price differentials in Mexico. I know the statistics don't bear me out on that one, and its deeply depressing to find out that Mexico can wrangle cheaper drugs than we can, but if you don't this is all going to seem really infuriating.

That's right, pretend. We have good cheap health care in pretend America. Everything's alright in pretend America.