What Blows Up Must Come Down by Nancy OhanianKeeping drug prices high has paid off well for conservatives. Both Republicans and faux-Dems-- like former House Majority Leader and anti-health care lobbyist Dick Gephardt, now a DNC Super-delegate who will help select the next Democratic nominee— have become wealthy from the PhRMA bribes. Drug manufacturers-- like Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Amgen, Abbvie, Merck, AstraZeneca, Nephron, Novartis, Sanofi, Allergan, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline and Novo Nordisk and Abbott Labs have spent millions of dollars bribing politicians and buying scumbag lobbyists like Gephardt.In the last cycle, here are the dozen currently-serving House members who took the most in bribes from Big PhRMA in just that 2 year period. In a just world they would all be rotting in prison instead of keeping the cost of medicine high. Do you ever vote for any of these criminal characters? (The number in brackets is the amount each has taken since 1990.)
• Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)- $214,150 ($839,550)• Greg Walden (R-OR)- $207,500 ($650,603)• Kevin Brady (R-TX)- $163,550 ($457,201)• Richard Neal (D-MA)- $127,000 ($399,600)• Linda Sanchez (D-CA)- $123,004 ($335,281)• Frank Pallone (D-NJ)- $117,200 ($698,170)• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)- $111,556 ($305,206)• Steny Hoyer (D-MD)- $96,000 ($720,572)• Brett Guthrie (R-KY)- $95,000 ($401,862)• John Shimkus (R-IL)- $94,500 ($616,485)• Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL)- $94,268 ($211,133)• Anna Eshoo (D-CA)- 90,950 ($893,315)
Although Fred Upton (R-MI) didn’t make it into the top 12 last cycle, since 1990 he’s taken the biggest share of PhRMA bribes of anyone currently serving in the House-- and is the single biggest culprit in the efforts to keep drug prices high for the American people. The 10 worst currently serving senators, each of whom has gobbled up some of the biggest portions in PhRMA bribes in their political careers are Mitt Romney (R-UT- $899,718), Moscow Mitch (R-KY- $860,313), Richard Burr (R-NC- $855,451), Robert Melendez (D-NJ- $727,573), Roy Blunt (R-MO- $659,140), Patty Murray (D-WA- $592,527), Bob Casey (D-PA- $572,534), Tom Carper (D-DE- $515,809), Chuck Schumer (D-NY- $485,779) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN- $467,402). If these politicians-- and the executives and lobbyists on the other side of the transactions-- were in prison, American drug prices would be less than half of what they are now.I take a drug called Vimpat for neuropathy, a common side effect after chemotherapy cancer treatments. Most insurance plans, including Medicare Part-D, do not cover it and it costs, on average $1,126.19 a month. Dick Gephardt has made certain that there are no generic versions available. I bought some in Thailand recently, via Abbott Labs for around $300 a month. Big saving, although that’s still $3,600 year.Reporters Michael Erman and Carl O’Donnell, writing for Reuters Tuesday, broke an exclusive story: Drugmakers from Pfizer to GlaxoSmithKline to hike U.S. prices on over 200 drugs. In fact most of the big drug firms that bribe American politicians “are planning to hike U.S. list prices on more than 200 drugs in the United States on Wednesday, according to drugmakers and data analyzed by healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors. Nearly all of the price increases will be below 10%, and around half of them are in the range of 4 to 6%, said 3 Axis co-founder Eric Pachman. The median price increase is around 5%, he said. More price increases are expected to be announced later this week, which could affect the median and range.”
Soaring U.S. prescription drug prices are expected to again be a central issue in the presidential election. President Donald Trump, who made bringing them down a core pledge of his 2016 campaign, is running for re-election in 2020.…Pfizer will hike prices on more than 50 drugs, including its cancer treatment Ibrance, which is on track to bring in nearly $5 billion in revenue this year, and rheumatoid arthritis drug Xeljanz.Pfizer spokeswoman Amy Rose confirmed the company’s planned price increases. She said the company plans to increase the list prices on around 27% of its portfolio in the United States by an average of 5.6%.Of the medicines with increases, she said 43% of them are sterile injectibles, and many of those increases are less than $1 per product.GlaxoSmithKline said it will raise prices on more than 30 drugs. The company will raise prices on the blockbuster respiratory treatments it delivers through its Ellipta inhaler, its recently acquired cancer drug Zejula and on several products in its HIV-focused ViiV joint venture, according to 3 Axis Advisors. Price increases ranged between 1% and 5%.Sanofi said it will raise prices on around 10 of its drugs, with hikes ranging between 1% and 5%. The drugmaker noted the increases are in line with its commitment to not raise prices above medical inflation.Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd raised prices on more than 15 drugs, in some cases by more than 6%, according to 3 Axis Advisors. A Teva spokesperson said the company regularly reviews prices in the context of market conditions, availability and cost of production.…Ian Spatz, a senior adviser at consulting firm Manatt Health, said that drugmakers could be holding to relatively low price hikes in an attempt to stay out of politicians’ crosshairs. Trump, for instance, targeted Pfizer after a proposed round of price increases in 2018, saying in a tweet that the drugmaker “should be ashamed.”“I’m sure many manufacturers are interested in making sure they are not called out on a large list price increase,” Spatz said.The United States, which leaves drug pricing to market competition, has higher prices than in other countries where governments directly or indirectly control the costs, making it the world’s most lucrative market for manufacturers.Trump, a Republican, has struggled to deliver on a pledge to lower drug prices before the November 2020 election. His administration recently proposed a rule to allow states to import prescription drugs from Canada.The administration had previously scrapped an ambitious policy that would have required health insurers to pass billions of dollars in rebates they receive from drugmakers to Medicare patients.The House of Representatives, controlled by Democrats, passed a bill earlier in December that would cap prices for the country’s most expensive drugs based on international prices and penalize drugmakers that do not negotiate with the Medicare insurance program for seniors. Trump has threatened to veto the bill, saying it would undermine access to lifesaving medicines.
Trump won’t have to veto it since Moscow Mitch has refused to allow it— or even more modest plans to be debated, let alone voted on. Michael Owens is running for a congressional seat in the suburbs south and southwest of Atlanta. The current congressman, corrupt Blue Dog David Scott, is perfectly content to see drug prices go up and up-- as long as he gets his cut. Owens, who is campaigning on Medicare-for-All, noted recently that he is personally allergic to shellfish and very aware of the surging prices of an Epipen-- from $94 in 2007 to $700 today. A few weeks ago he told me about his own life or death decision. “Do I pay $2,100 dollars (one for home, one for work and one for my backpack) or do I just try my luck with a $13.00 pack of Benadryl and hope that it gets into my bloodstream in time?… I need Epipens, but I also need a place to live… It’s time to stop the greed, and stand firmly on the side of saving more lives. Our tax money is used by highly profitable, private drug companies to research and develop medicines, and it is time our investment goes back into PROVIDING PUBLIC HEALTHCARE!Heidi Sloan, a Democratic Socialist, running for a central Texas congressional seat against anti-healthcare crooked Republican Roger Williams, took a less specific point of view, expanding it out to cover a broader range of issues important to the people she seeks to represent in Congress. "I think a lot of the resistance to socialists versus progressives stems from a resentment about purity-- that when socialists insist on a framework that addresses structural issues, when we won't settle for half-measures, we're engaging in purity politics and hurting the left. That critique ignores history, as we would not currently have Donald Trump in office if the Democratic Party had not sent a corporate neoliberal to beat him. Centrists who have troublingly scarce ties or adversarial relationships with working people, labor, and marginalized communities should be criticized because we as a party must have high standards for leadership. We insist on high standards because it is what the working class deserves, and because we recognize that we cannot win unless we have the courage to demand what we actually want instead of what we think they will let us have."