"Obamacare Is to Health Reform What Bank Bailouts Are to Financial System Reform"

Indeed, leading investigative reporter Greg Palast - who studied healthcare economics at the Center for Hospital Administration Studies at the University of Chicago - says that Obama got next to nothing in return for his concessions to the healthcare lobby.Specifically , he says that the "$80 billion in healthcare savings" claim touted by Obama is not very impressive:

Over ten years, they will reduce the amount at which they would otherwise raise drug prices. Got that? In other words, the Obama deal locks in a doubling of drug costs, projected to rise over the period of "savings" from a quarter trillion dollars a year to half a trillion dollars a year. Minus that 2%.

We'll still get the shaft from Big Pharma, but Obama will have circumcised the increase.

And what did Obama give up in return for $80 billion? ... Obama agreed to dump his campaign pledge to bargain down prices for Medicare purchases. Furthermore, Obama's promise that we could buy cheap drugs from Canada simply went pffft!

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