The pharmaceutical industry, through its lobbying group PhRMA, has promised to cut drug prices for certain Medicare Part D recipients and others by $80 billion over the next decade. In return, the Obama Administration has promised not to reform the pharmaceutical industry — no new regulations, no Medicare negotiation for lower drug prices, no drug reimportation from Canada.
Sound like a good deal to you?
Well, $80 billion sure sounds like a lot of money. But here are some things to think about –
- President Obama trumpeted the deal without indicating how or whether these savings could be guaranteed; the specific terms are not included in any of the bills in Congress.
- Some analysts estimate that only $30 billion of the $80 billion can be guaranteed.
- Since U.S. prescription drug prices have been rising at three times the rate of inflation, it is unclear whether the promised price cuts will actually reduce prices or simply slow their growth temporarily.
- In accepting PhRMA’s demand for no price negotiations, the government is forgoing what could be as much as $220 billion in savings over the same period, according to a report by the Institute for America’s Future, which matched drug price savings the government negotiated for the Veteran’s Administration.
- Americans spend $200 billion per year on prescription drugs — and rising (even with the $80 billion “discount”).
- We pay more for prescription drugs than any country in the world. The Congressional Budget Office found that drug prices in other countries average 35 to 55 percent below the prices in the U.S. But now that Obama has buckled on Canadian drug reimportation, Americans cannot take advantage of these bargains (at least according to the letter of the law).
- The pharmaceutical industry spends $100 million a year — $1 billion a decade — just on lobbying members of Congress.
- Even in the midst of a recession, Johnson & Johnson CEO William Weldon was paid $29,127,432 in 2008; Abbott Labs CEO Miles White made $28,253,387 and Merck’s Richard Clark made $25,073,555.
- Overall, Americans pay twice as much (or more) per capita on healthcare than all other Western countries, which in many cases have better health outcomes than the United States.
How’s that $80 billion sound now?
Sources: Nader, Redmond
Did you ever see “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”? Well, I’d like to report the snatching of two bodies — those of Harry and Louise. As our friend John Mack reports:
Remember those Health Insurance Association of America “Harry and Louise” TV ads that were instrumental in scuttling Hillary Clinton’s health reform efforts in 1993? Well, Harry and Louise are back! This time, however, they support health reform. “A little more cooperation, a little less politics, and we can get the job done this time,” says Louise as a halo swirls around her head and eventually forms the URL: HarryandLouise.org. Seems to me we could have gotten the job done in 1993 with a little less Harry and Louise!
Here’s the ad that started running this weekend:
Ironic, huh?
But the real irony here is not that proponents of healthcare reform are using the same characters who effectively opposed it in 1993. It’s that while the 1993 ads were predictably funded by the Big Insurance lobby, the new ads are funded by Big Insurance’s longtime partner in crime — the Big Pharma lobby, PhRMA.
So, whose body has actually been snatched here? Harry’s? Louise’s? Or PhRMA’s?
Alas, PhRMA hasn’t turned over a new leaf and suddenly become a populist organization committed to ensuring healthcare justice for all. The fact is, because the Obama Administration knows the president’s reelection probably depends on swift passage of healthcare reform, it has given away the farm to corporate interests — including giving Big Pharma everything it wants.
If anybody has turned into a pod person, in fact, it’s Obama.
What does it say about corporate power in the United States when even a president whose party has 60 seats in the Senate and a huge majority in the House can’t oppose it?
When all is said and done, will Obama’s healthcare reform legislation be much different than a bigger, more bloated version of President Bush’s Medicare Part D boondoggle?
Just cross your fingers, close your eyes, and keep telling yourself, “It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie.”
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