Sen. Ted Kennedy (seen with Sens. Chuck Grassley and Max Baucus) chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, to which the AARP's angry letter was addressed. AARP threatens sens. on health care

Horse trading in Washington is infamous. But it's rare to catch a glimpse of the horse in the midst of the trade in real time.

Friday was one of those rare exceptions when the powerful lobby for seniors, the AARP, sent a memo to Senate officials threatening to yank support for the chamber's health committee's version of reform if it didn't get what it wanted on another provision in the bill related to biogeneric drugs.


The sharply worded memo, sent through an e-mail obtained by POLITICO late Friday, illustrates the hardball politics and dealmaking going on behind the scenes as Congress considers a trillion-dollar overhaul of the health care system.

In the Thursday e-mail sent to Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee health policy staff director David Bowen, AARP lobbyist Nora Super spells out the deal:

"I cannot recommend a letter of support or a major grass-roots effort in support [of the health care reform bill]. Indeed, people will probably have to be critical, particularly about that provision. I hope you won't force us to do that on such an important bill that I know you all have worked so hard on," she wrote in the e-mail.

"Again, AARP wants to be supportive; however, we also need to feel as if the concerns of our members have been heard," Super wrote.

Senate committee spokesman Anthony Coley said of the e-mail: "We don't comment on private conversations, especially those with allies who share our belief that health reform should reduce costs, protect choice and guarantee high quality, affordable health care for all Americans."

At issue is the creation of a federal approval process for generic biologics, drugs such as insulin that are proteins made by living organisms. Name-brand drug makers want exclusive rights to sell biologics for 12 to 14 years before a similar generic version can be marketed. AARP is pushing for a shorter window.

"We believe strongly, along with many other consumer, business, labor, insurance, [pharmacy benefit managers], and provider groups, that a double digit exclusivity period is simply too long and therefore not acceptable. We would be explicitly negative if this is the bill the Committee reports out," Super wrote.

In an interview on Friday, Super said her e-mail to Bowen was intended to express disappointment about the direction the committee was headed on a key AARP priority.

"That wasn't what I would perceive as a threat," she said. "It was a private correspondence. I'm not going to talk to you about what it did or didn't mean. It wasn't meant to be a story for the press."

In the e-mail, Super tells Bowen that the high prices of biologic drugs are a major problem for seniors and that lowering their cost is more important to AARP's membership than drug re-importation.

"I believe AARP could have not been more clear throughout this process that prescription drugs is one of our number one issues for our members," she wrote. "Thus, we are having trouble understanding reports that so many Committee Democrats — led by your team - refuses [sic] to budge on this issue."

A senior pharmaceutical industry lobbyist, who opposes the AARP-sought changes, said the e-mail illustrates that the seniors' organization, which offers insurance products and could stand to gain from cheaper drug prices, puts its business interests before its public policy concerns.

"The worst kept secret in health care circles is that AARP is more about its insurance wing than it is about seniors. If this isn't the smoking gun, I'm not sure what is," the lobbyist said. "I can't believe that AARP would threaten the Senate with pulling its support for health reform for their insurance wing. They say they have a firewall. Some firewall, huh?"

But AARP spokesman Drew Nannis called the charge bunk.

"Our push for health reform will continue for more than 40 million members and it isn't surprising that any discussion about lowering drug prices might draw the ire of the pharmaceutical industry," he said. "Any assertion that products that bear AARP's name somehow dictate policy is ridiculous."