Official announcements have confirmed that Representative Billy Tauzin of Louisiana is stepping down from $2 Million-per-year role as the top lobbyist for the medicine industry, amid various complaints from drug manufacturers that he had bargained away their earnings too cheaply, spent too much of his $150 Million advertising campaign in order to sell the revamp and also miscalculated his assessment that the passage of the legislation was all but inevitable.

Other lobbyist of the drug sector have stressed that Mr. Tauzin's departure has managed to raise many questions about whether manufacturers of drugs would continue to lend their support to the proposed overhaul of the healthcare system.

Supporters of Mr. Tauzin, across the drug industry trade group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, have stressed that he was more-or-less undefeated in his 5 long years of representing the industry on Capitol Hill.

Mr. Tauzin was first elected in 1980 as a Democrat, but he switched to become a Republican in 1994.