Barack Obama in 2007:

“The growth in the cost of drugs has slowed in recent years, in part because of greater use of generic drugs. But given the price tag, and the financial challenges of our health care system, we can – and must – take additional steps to curb how much we are spending on drugs.”

“Allowing the federal government to negotiate for lower drug prices in the Medicare program would have been an important step forward in this regard. When you look at the prices the federal government has negotiated for our veterans and military men and women, it is clear that the government can – and should – use its leverage to lower prices for our seniors as well.”

“Drug negotiation is the smart thing to do and the right thing to do, and it is unconscionable that we were not take up this bill today.”

A great way to negotiate better prices would have been to allow reimpotation of drugs, but now we have President Obama instead of Candidate Obama and that means we have an entirely different beast.