Pharmaceutical Industry's Deal Is a Reform-Enhancing Drug

In late June, the drug industry pledged to reduce costs by $80 billion over the next ten years to help lawmakers fund comprehensive health care reform.

Seniors are applauding the move, as much of the money will help plug Medicare's infamous "doughnut hole" -- the gap in drug coverage that about 3 million seniors experience each year. Of equal importance, though, is the precedent it sets for the role of the medical industry in the legislative process.

If smart, effective health care reform is going to happen, it will require an unprecedented cooperative effort that brings the health care industry together with politicians on both sides of the aisle. This $80 billion pledge is one of many signs that such a coalition is beginning to form.

Health care has always been among the thorniest issues in American politics. It's nearly impossible to discuss the topic without inflaming one camp or another. Such quibbling has stood in the way of progress -- allowing health care costs to skyrocket and leaving nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance.

We now have an opportunity to do away with party-line grandstanding and address the problems that have afflicted our system for decades. By sitting down at the table and agreeing to sacrifice for the cause of health care reform, the drug industry is moving the process in the right direction -- and raising the expectations for what is required of our health care industry and political leaders on this issue.

Indeed, public opinion data bears this out. According to a recent Gallup poll, Americans are more confident in the pharmaceutical and insurance industries than they are in Congressional Republicans when it comes to fixing health care. This shift in public opinion provides an opportunity for the health care industry to play a more active role in the reform process.

The pharmaceutical sector got the ball rolling. What's required now is for other businesses and labor groups to roll up their sleeves and commit to working with the federal government to enact pragmatic reforms that are neither harmful to the private sector nor unfair to patients.

Luckily, other groups from both industry and labor are beginning to do just that. On June 30, Wal-Mart and the Service Employees International Union -- two groups that traditionally find themselves on opposite sides of most issues -- teamed up to support a government mandate that all employers provide health insurance for their workers.

Partnerships such as these bring a valuable perspective to the policymaking process, and make sure that reform is carried out in a measured, even-handed manner.

The drug industry's promise is a historic moment in American health care policy. But it needs to be accompanied by similar sacrifices from other private sector stakeholders, as well as politicians. America's health care crisis has gone on for too long. Now we have a chance to abandon petty partisanship, and create a health care system that is sensible, fair, and effective.

Douglas E. Schoen was a campaign consultant for more than 30 years and is the author of Declaring Independence: The Beginning of the End of the Two-Party System.

Comments

[Sinick]

Sacrifices, hah! Regardless, big pharma and our idiot pols are still raking us over the coals. Can somebody please tell me:

1. Why we can get brand name medication from Canada for roughly one-third what we pay here
2 . Why Americans have to subsidize the R&D of big pharma while the rest of the world doesn't
3. Why Americans have to subsidize clinical trials that have been fast-tracked by recent legislation with disastrous results
4. Why big pharma is allowed to pay off potential competitors to prevent them from manufacturing generics once the copyright has expired

Big pharma is a monopoly that owns our pols. I can't decide which of them I loathe more.

[WorkingClass]

Nonsense. The drug industry will never do anything to help anybody. They must be humbled and brought to heel. The health insurance companies are even worse. They must be destroyed completely. Stop lying to me. I don't like it.

[tbone99]

A mandate that requires all employers provide healthcare is a mandate guaranteeing that small businesses will close, large businesses will go oversees and the unemployed can crawl in bed and die.

We need reliable healthcare AND jobs Even business supports governemnt healthcare, That is except the insurance companies and hospitals

[Nutcase]

How naive can one be?

Prescribing for something not approved by the FDA is known as off-label prescribing. Just one drug earned $9 billion from such prescribing.

The drug industry is the most profitable industry in the world. $8 billion a year is a mere pittance. Actually, I doubt we will see any substantial portion of it.

We will find the government increasing the present subsidies plus covering more people will mean more sales for them. Can you spell H O A X?

This blogger is either a stooge of, or easily fooled by, al-PhARMA.

[FoonTheElder]

Today's corporations are so good at sounding like they are helping when in fact they plan on doing nothing. Those PR people who they pay big dollars, are really earning their money.

They are the same people who tell you that drug companies need big earnings on drugs for more research. The problem is that they fail to mention that they spend three times as much on advertising than they do for research. They also need long patent protection for the many new drugs that are reverse engineered from existing drugs.

The problem is that when any of the medical industry price gougers promise to save you a few dollars you should laugh in their face. In the past 20 years, the increase in medical costs would have to be reduced by 80% to match the percentage pitiful increase in inflation and wages.

[tompoe]

I will earn more than $100,000 in the next ten years. How do I know that? Because I wrote it on this piece of paper. See? Now, I'm willing to cut that $100,000 by $20,000, if you promise to subsidize me. Hey, trust me! I promise.