Big Pharma's Free Ride

If John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson had written America's bank security standards, Americans would have withdrawn their money from banks. So why isn't the American public concerned about why the drug companies are in love with Obama's health care reform plan? The drug companies are spending millions on ad campaigns praising Obama's reform efforts.

Remember, those same drug companies also spent hundreds of millions to defeat Obama's presidential bid. Today, they love Obama. It's easy to understand. Obama has given them a free pass to where they don't have to help pay for reform. As a trade-off for their help in shoving a trillion dollar symbolic reform plan down America's throat, Obama has rewarded the drug companies in a big way. First they continue to be able to charge $50 for a $2 pill without any centralized price controls in place. Secondly, Obama is allowing the drug companies the right to sell $2 pills in Canada while he tells Americans that they can't cross the border and buy that $2 pill that is costing them $50 in the U.S.

Obama is also rewarding the drug companies for their cooperation by assuring them that there will be no changes to the laws that make it near impossible for less expensive generic drugs to reach the American market.

I have seen first hand how strong this new friendship is between Obama and the drug industry. When I appear on Fox TV these days discussing this new Obama love affair, I receive the angriest e-mails from viewers who obviously make their money selling pharmaceuticals. The drug company corporate types are no longer calling Obama a socialist. Today they call Obama a visionary mainly because he is their new sugar daddy.

They also like the idea that Obama's goal is not so much about reform as it is the perception of reform. The idea is to just give the public something.

There will be no serious health care reform until the drug companies, the hospital corporations and the HMO industry are forced to pay their share of the bill. The only way to accomplish that is to have Obama change his ridiculous love struck posture into a leadership posture where he demands acceptable price controls over segments of the health care industry like the drug makers.

But Obama and his single trick democrats seem so focused on taxing consumers to pay for their illusory reform that they miss the obvious.

They appear to be unwilling to overcome the influence of the 1.4 million dollars per day that the health care industry is spending on lobbyists. Most of the lobby effort these days is not directed at stopping reform. Instead, the goal is to make sure that their client does not help pay for that reform.

Can you imagine the party that took place at the Pfizer, Merck, and Glaxo headquarters when they learned that none of the industry's $90 billion a year profits would go towards paying for reform. Imagine their excitement when they proved once more that regardless of who's in charge of government, a thousand lobbyists hired by a $90 billion industry will always make catchy slogans like, "Yes We Can," sound almost meaningless.

Follow Mike Papantonio on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RingofFireRadio

Comments

[paparopash]

Wow - there's a lot of interesting (wrong) statistics and figures being thrown around here. Wonder why the Pharma industry rolls its eyes at criticism like this? Because your "gut feeling" of disliking an industry that makes a profit off the well-being of others doesn't make any of these lies and half-truths correct. (And if you took a closer look at most industries, you'd see their revenue comes from the well-being or needs of others - including probably the one you work for.)

Do some drugs have ridiculous costs? Yes. Why don't you give the FDA a call and ask them why it takes them years to approve or disapprove a drug after pharma and biotech companies have spent billions of dollars on clinical trials? Cut that red tape and the cost of R&D could be spread over a longer period of time. The cost of each pill or injection goes down.

As for healthcare in general, why don't you ask your primary care physician (never mind a specialist - woo boy!) how much they make? Monster hospital costs and outsized doctor pay (fed by the super-macho med school culture) are what eats up the vast majority of our healthcare dollars.

[moonjumper]

Everything Papantonio says here is spot on, but in the grand scheme of things he's wrong.

There's no way in hell we're going to blast apart 16% of GDP, a 2.6 trillion dollar industry, and remake the whole thing overnight. The key is to get the overall framework in place, then shove the damn thing out the door. It's a Trojan Horse.

We need to get universal coverage, a strong public option, address portability issues, put a stop to rescission and preexisting conditions, and then shove it out the door -- even if costs continue to rise over time, which they will.

Once those things are in place and we're addressing the exploding cost issue yet again (in 5 years?), does anyone really think the winning solution will be throwing the American people back to the curb? Of course it won't. That's when Big Pharma and the insurance and hospital industry take their haircut. That's exactly where they're at right now with the Massachusetts experiment.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/07/good_news_out_of_massachusetts.html

The overall framework is the key.

[Estreet1964]

One of the ideas that both side bring up in regard to health care reform is bringing costs down. There is a sure fire way to do that.

Take a look at what happened to the profits of Big Pharma when they were allowed to bombard us with advertisements. (Ask your doctor about....) They skyrocketed!! Advertising of pharmaceuticals needs to be banned again to protect the American public from paying bloated prices for drugs they don't need.

Big Pharma always b.i.t.c.h.e.s about how much they invest in R & D. That invest pales in comparison to what they pay their executives and what they spend to advertise and lobby and send doctors on vacations to attend "seminars".

[RoloTomassi]

Jeez, I get tired of stating this, but I did vote for Obama, and do still hope he will come to his senses at some point--but then I read an article like this one and see some of my own assertions about his behavior and special interest connections validated.

So...where are the Obama fanboys? Do none of them dare take a peek into this article & comments section--do all of them fear having to defend the indefensible in regards to this none-too-small aspect of healthcare reform?

I have commented on this issue many times, but it cannot be repeated enough: US pharmaceutical companies have paid for the right to legally STEAL from US consumers. While other nations are free to negotiate prices for their healthcare systems [those nations that actually have a funtioning system], we are forced by our government to OVERPAY the pharma companies for the products that we largely subsidize the research for through government funding. We constantly here the lie about big pharma's need to overcharge us for their efforts in research, but a little research on their actual practices reveals that their far larger expenditures go to advertizin­g--adverti­zing that only our wholly dysfunctional society will allow.

I am at the point of hoping that the reform package does feature a bogus public option; then perhaps we can kill this ill-conceived reform effort and start over--that may be a pipedream, but no reform is better than bogus half-measures.

[Miles Teg]

This is a great article. And I guess it really only matters now that Americans are affected negatively. When these same policies were "forced" onto poor African countries it was fine because making a buck is what it is about... the export of this dysfunctional vicious monopoly capitalist system was "imposed" on Africa, it was fine. At the risk of being callous (not intended) but do Americans wonder at the lack of sympathy for their struggles for what is a human right? Perhaps if Americans stopped navel gazing so much they will actually see how vicious these vested interests are, and then take appropriate action... But hey the masters of the universe are simply having a bad hair day, nothing more, eh?

[SeenItBefore]

And you expected something different?

Ever heard the phrase, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you."?

[jbatch]

We, the American people fed Obama, and we feed the government. Our indivicual contributions to Obama's campaign exceeded corporate contributions by a country mile. And we pay the taxes that fund government.

The problem is that we don't/won't demand that we be represented. There's no consiequence to ignoring the people. 70% of Amaericans want to reform our health care system, and more than 70% want an aggressive energy bill.

We will get neither because we're obsessing on such giant irrelevancies as the death of a moderately talented -- but bizarre -- singer as if he'd been important (or any number of other inanities).

There are more than 2000 lobbyists trolling on Capitol Hill right now in an effort to sink health care reform and the energy/climate bill.

There should be 10,000 citizens doing the same in support of reform.

In thend, we deserve what we get.

[billyfromphilly]

You're right, but we can't do anything about it because we're too busy working 60 hours/week between 2 jobs to help make ends meet. Real Estate speculation helped make our basic costs of living a nightmare, leaving no room for medical bills, savings, etc. We all have to pay our bloated mortgages, car payments, college loans, and the blood pressure meds that we're taking because we're stressed out from working too many hours.