Following a pasta dish so dull that the bits of parsley seemed like culinary adventurism on the kitchen's part, Mark Warner addressed the luncheon. Warner is a talented speaker, and fluent on health care. He focuses on competitiveness rather than coverage (Salazar was the reverse), and makes an argument I've not heard Democrats utter before: "We need to rationalize drug costs. I won't stand up here and bash pharma. But it's not fair that Americans pay for research and development of the whole world, as other countries all have some pricing constraints." As readers of this site know, our decision to forgo national bargaining (or even Medicare bargaining) while every other country does use their size to drive down costs has led to a situation in which we pay far more so that Canadians and the French can pay far less. That's what Canadian Drug Reimportation is all about: Buying the same drugs we buy here, but at the prices negotiated by the Canadian government. It's galling, and I'm glad to hear Warner giving voice to it. On the actual topic of reform, Warner promises, if he's elected, to find 9 or 10 other moderate Senators and form a "radical centrists" caucus. On the one hand, that sort of middle-of-the-road legislative work is important. On the other, you have to be clear about what you're trying to win. The deal needs to be in service of a policy. So hearing Warner start a compromise caucus before he's got something to fight for -- as compared to Ron Wyden, who's pulling in bipartisan sponsors around concrete legislation -- strikes me as a bit of a cart-before-the-horse problem.
