Evidence continues to build that corporate interests, particuarly those of health insurers and drug makers, are defining the look of health care reform. Last week, the Senate Finance Committee rejected a proposal that would have allowed Medicare to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices.

The pharmaceutical industry's power was demonstrated earlier in the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, which was passed in 2004 and included a provision prohibiting Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices. That sweetheart deal with the drug makers is costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which does negotiate for lower drug prices, pays about 58 percent less for drugs than Medicare.

Much of the drug industry's recent success in protecting its profits comes from former Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., who was instrumental in crafting the Medicare Part D legislation. Soon after the bills passage, Tauzin quickly retired from Congress to accept a $2 million-a-year post as president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). As the industry's top lobbyist, Tauzin reportedly led the negotiations in the behind-closed-doors deal with the Obama White House in which the drug industry pledges $80 billion in exchange for PhRMA's support for health care reform, meaning many millions of dollars in television advertising.

In cutting this deal, PhRMA promises savings of $80 billion. But a 2008 congressional subcommittee report suggests that potential savings from drug makers, if the government would negotiate for lower prices, is closer to $150 billion.

Government negotiation for lower drug costs, which reduces health care costs in Canada and Europe, is something the industry desperately wants to avoid in the United States.

So, it appears the industry plans to pre-empt stronger action by cutting a deal with the White House. Obama administration officials have decided it is better to let the drug industry get most of what it wants, keeping huge profits and forcing Americans to pay more for drugs, than to have the industry fight against health care reform, as it did during the Clinton administration.

The drug makers and health insurance companies are happy with the special deals they have negotiated with the White House, so there are no Harry and Louise commercials blasting Obama's reform efforts. But by agreeing to prohibit the government from negotiating lower drug prices, the Obama administration is leaving a hundred billion dollars, or more, on the table — and that's money that taxpayers will be paying.

The 2004 Medicare prescription drug deal shifted about 6 million low-income seniors from Medicaid, which does negotiate for lower drug prices, to Medicare, which does not. For medications provided those 6 million seniors, the government — meaning taxpayers — now pays about 30 percent higher prices than it did when patients were under Medicaid.

The result of that shift: higher profits for drug makers and higher expenses for Medicare and taxpayers.

The Obama administration appears to have made the political calculation that to get health care reform passed, it's necessary to give the industry's powerful special interests what they want. But that's certainly a retreat from the bold, new approach that candidate Obama promised.

The White House deals with the drug makers and the insurance industry in exchange for political support for reform are bad deals. They force the administration to support a plan that will cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars more than it should cost, and certainly threatens Obama's promise that any health care reform bill he signs will not add to the federal deficit.

There is increasing skepticism over Obama's promise of billions of dollars in health care cost savings. The secret deals with powerful special interests only add to doubts about the true cost of health care reform, where increased costs are guaranteed but savings are mostly vague promises based on trimming waste and inefficiencies.

Cutting deals with powerful health care interests might stifle industry criticism, but it essentially maintains the status quo in which Americans pay nearly twice as much for health care as do citizens and taxpayers of most other advanced countries.

The once-secret White House deals suggest passing a health care reform bill is more important than reducing health care spending, despite all the talk about cost reductions.