“when the Democrats would screech to high heaven about the GOP being in cahoots with Big Pharma”
Well it seems that Rick Santorum is still in cahoots with Big Pharma, just like he’d been as Senator 200-2006...
A child asked Santorum what the candidate would do to lower the cost of medicine.
February 1, 2012, the candidate Santorum declared: “”People have no problem going out and buying an iPad for $900. But paying $200 for a drug they have a problem with — that keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned in thinking health care is something you should get and not have to pay for. Drug companies, health care companies need to have a profitability, because if they don’t, then how are we going to regulate costs?”
The mother of the child yelled out that she was going bankrupt just to pay for her child to keep breathing.
“I hear these and sympathize with these very passionate cases,” Santorum responded to the mother. “Look, I want your son and everybody to have the opportunity to stay alive on much-needed drugs. But the bottom line is, we have companies with the incentive to make those drugs.” (meaning making more money and getting the medication more expensive)
In the years before he lost his Pennsylvania Senate seat in 2006, Rick Santorum worked hard to win hundreds of millions of dollars in additional Medicare money for hospitals in Puerto Rico.
He sponsored at least two Senate bills and pushed to amend a mammoth Medicare overhaul to include the extra spending, which would have benefited Universal Health Services, a Pennsylvania-based hospital management company with facilities in Puerto Rico. If it seems at odds with the small-government philosophy Mr. Santorum now espouses in his presidential campaign, it was in line with his legislative efforts to help businesses in his state.
Within months of leaving the Senate (in 2006), Mr. Santorum joined the board of Universal Health Services, where he collected $395,000 in director’s fees and stock options before resigning last year (in 2011).
It’s amazing how much Santorum was willing to help corporations, and how little is he ready to help sick children to survive.
It’s amazing how much Santorum was willing to help corporations, and how little is he ready to help sick children to survive.
DU called. They want this line back.
Marguerite, it is very hard to find factual stuff you can be sure of, and I am glad you posted this. This thing about Puerto Rico is really bad for Santorum... everyone can understand it... big spending, paybacks... thanks so much!
In regard to your post about Santorumw (the MSNDC article), yadda yadda, with the story of someone unable to afford a drug for a sick child ...
I get it. Prescription drugs are expensive...
How is the birth control mandate going to lower the cost of anything?
BTW - While everyone pays highere premiums to cover the costs of birth control, there won’t be any less unwanted pregnancies, births, as a result of this mandate. I guarantee you that.
Santorum was correct talking to that mother. He was defending the principle of the free market. The presumption that she had a right to free medications is a liberal invention. Are anti-Rick types are defending liberalism here now? And, IIRC (it was discussed at FR at the time), the drug she cited as necessary for “keeping her son alive” was for ADHD and significantly less expensive than she claimed. Just an all too typical manufactured liberal moment. Do it to Obama and we buy her a ‘free’ house. Do it to Santorum and receive a valuable lecture on the truth, free to the tax payers.