Health Care Reform: Drug Companies Are The Big Winners

usnews.com:

As Congress gets closer to final healthcare-reform legislation, the central question remains murky: Who will foot the bill?

Figures contained in the $856 billion proposal by Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana--which has emerged as the basis for a final compromise between the House and Senate--suggest that key parts of the healthcare industry are getting off easy. The Baucus bill would pay for itself in a number of ways, including taxes on some high-cost insurance plans, Medicare cost reductions, and cuts in federal benefits. It would also raise about $13 billion a year from fees paid by three industries: pharmaceuticals, health insurance, and medical device

Read the whole story: usnews.com

Comments

[SaneBull]

Yay stocks surging on Wall Street. Lets forget about high unemployment, wall street greed & corruption, and heath care reform. Happy days are here again for the rich, while everyone else goes though the same $h1t everyday.

good articles; http://www.iamned.com

Ppl have no money, no heath care, no home, no job, no sanity.

[mamalisa38]

The top ten drug executives earned $199.4 million in 2008

PER HOUR PAY

Mike White - Abbott - $17,395
Fred Hassan- Schering-Plough - $15,677
Bill Weldon - Johnson & Johnson - $13,022
Bob Essner - Wyeth - $12,552
Robert Parkinson - Baxter - $8,854
Richard Clark - Merck - $7,562
Frank Baldina - Cephalon - $7,031
Sidney Taurel - Eli Lily - $6,770
Jeff Kindler - Phizer - $6,562

My friend's father's life saving medications cost $500 a month, and thanks to the "doughnut hole" in the Republican drug plan, has to put it on his credit card.

[Clayton139]

People should watch this show called: PBS Special Report Healthcare !!!
It is the real TRUTH on Health Care and Reform !!!

http://video.pbs.org/video/1275928196/program/1120797048

[Lorianne]

There is no health 'care' reform.
There is insurance reform, and even that is dubious.

Stop conflating the terms care and insurance.
Not the same thing at all.

[bthechangeyouseek]

Too bad many people don't understand this.
I also do not see why the news is portraying this is the bill, when there are five committees and multiple areas of agreement. The debate on funding health care has just started.

[GeoLee]

TV news lives and breathes thanks to the income doming in for drug advertising. We cannot base our decisions on what we see on television for that very reason.

[DailyFed]

Wall street reform, universal healthcare/reform, Guantanomo closure, Iraq/Afghanistan pull out-not a single one of these objectives have been met by the Obama administration. Worse, there there's no evidence any progress is being made.

good articles; http://www.iamned.com

If obama loses to the teab@ggrs it will be his fault
,

[pros54]

While I do not support the drug companies they however do bring a product into healthcare unlike the insurance companies that only take out of the system.

[GeoLee]

Moat of which were developed and researched by our U.S. government sponsored agenxcies such as NIH and government grants to university research centers. Oft times, all the pharmacy companies do is the massive manufacturing and advertising and delivery.

[pros54]

I agree on that but my point is that the insurance companies bring absolutely nothing to health care they only take from it. they are like highway robbers but collect from you on a monthly basis and are fully sanctioned by our government.

[ImissBush]

thew more things "change"

[jozzie]

Separate the profit motive from health insurance. You don't need to "socialize" every part of the health care industry, just the administration of payments.

That's enough. Costs will go down and patients will not be exposed to bankruptcy because of medical emergencies. It can happen to any one of us.

[NationalTreasure]

as the Baucus bill is just another way to screw over the middle class --- the formula outlined will create a system that will simply shift more costs onto the public and it is not going to effect the bottom line of the pharmaceutical companies because they will simply pass the cost along to the public and the government through Medicare

[Lorianne]

Of course they win. Duh

Big business loves big government and vis versa.

[TJCole]

The least they could do is bring back Qualudes and put it in the drinking water for free so we can all be in a euphoric fog as the wheels come off and this great experiment crashes like an Osprey....­or Icarus...

[davidwayneosedach]

Whos' going to pay the bill for national healthcare? Who else? Main ST!

[bthechangeyouseek]

Main Street pays for most everything. That is why trickle down does not work. National health care with the right accountabilities in place will pay for itself in the long run.

[nogimmicks]

The Baucus/Obama plan is written by the insurance and pharma companies and does the opposite to what is really needed. It is like forcing 100% of students to buy a 300 dollar textbook (aka private insurance), instead of preserving a freedom not to sign up and fostering a competition between the textbooks. Obama failed this one already by not really proposing anything and letting the guilty parties write what they want to "reform" themselves. Their solution is simple: force people to give us more business and ban the competition.

[Lorianne]

It was never his plan to begin with. It was Pelosi/Reid's plan.
Obama is their chihuahua

[GreenN10]

Goldman and Bank of Amerika run the markets along with Geithner, and beagle boy Ben. There is no free markets, only welfare capitalism and socialism for capitalism.

good articles: http://www.iamned.com

[Libarchist]

Exactly.

[KnowzyRowzy]

Where's Obama's plan?!

[BlueSkyPilot]

Left a good job in Chicago
Stumpin for election evry night and day,
And I never lost one minute of lyin,
Worryin bout the way things could have been.

Big O keep on lyin,
Proud O jus keep on lyin,
lyin, lyin, lyin to the people.

Pulled a lot of wool over peoples eyes,
Dumped a lot of crap on america,
Never made a promise that I meant to keep,
Unless I get caught and am impeached.­.

lyin, lyin, lyin to the people.

[OpposingViewpoint]

Is that you Tina? Great legs!

[lordjin]

Funny.

Chicago, political cesspool of America BTW.