Posted on 03/22/2010 6:58:30 AM PDT by ICAB9USA
From Tim Carney’s article in the Washington Examiner, Dems tap drug maker millions for PhRMA-friendly bill:
Of all the single-industry lobbies in Washington, the largest is the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America. PhRMA spent $26.2 million on lobbying last year — that’s nearly three times as much as the insurance lobby, America’s Health Insurance Plans, which spent $8.9 million.
If you include individual companies’ lobbying, pharmaceuticals blow away the competition, beating all other industries by 50 percent, according to data at the Center for Responsive Politics.
Given this Big Pharma clout, it’s unsurprising that the bill Obama’s whipping for — Senate bill — has nearly everything the drug companies wanted: prohibiting reimportation of drugs, preserving Medicare’s overpayment for drugs, lengthy exclusivity for biotech drugs, a mandate that states subsidize drugs under Medicaid, hundreds of billions in subsidies for drugs, and more.
Read the whole article:
(Excerpt) Read more at patientpowernow.org ...
These jerks cut their own throats and they just don’t know it, yet. Lay with dogs and you get fleas, play with snakes and you get bit.
Yes ...... the pharmaceutical lobbyists helped write the bill ....... and now the fan and the sh*t get some real action.
The supporters of this bill have no idea of what it is going to do, they just think they now will get free health care, and will now just go back to watching American Idol, happy in that knowledge.
They’re in for a rude awakening.
Without the market dynamic any more, why should they give us anything new?
yup meds are going to go sky high and so will hospital costs
Pressure will be on the efficiency/death/rationing panels to use old cheap drugs. Big Pharma will find itself sans customers.
So did the insurance companies. That’s the beauty of the system. The liberals think that they win but it all comes down to the Benjamins. Imagine if the insurance companies could dump their high cost clients on the government and keep the lower cost clients.
AARP loves O-care too. Take the money you would spend on AARP, save it, and then you will have a fund ready if you need hospitalization.
may be....I am wondering what will happen to all the state programs ....we have sooner care in OK and there is another type of coverage in Texas....many states already cover uninsured. there really was no good reason for this except fed control...taking more power from the states...and getting more tax dollars in the coffers...
Someone who knows what they’re doing needs to start following the money now.
I believe a lot of it will be flowing to Obama, Pelosi, etc.
How heavily are Dems invested in health care related stocks?
If he doesn't stay in power, the conservatives replacing him ought to be sure they pay a price for their evil coalition with him.
laugh while you can, boys....the looters are coming back for price controls and reimportation sooner than you think
“PhRMA chief Billy Tauzin, who was vilified by Obama on the campaign trail, worked out much of this sweetheart deal in a West Wing meeting with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Tauzin visited the White House at least 11 times. He left his imprint so deeply on the current bill that it should probably be called BillyCare rather than ObamaCare.
Recall that pharmaceutical executives and political action committees dug deep trying to save the flailing candidacy of Democrat Martha Coakley in Massachusetts — a race that was explicitly a referendum on health care. She took in more than 10 times as much drug company cash as Republican Scott Brown.
This week, PhRMA, through a front group called Americans for Stable Quality Care, is rolling out millions of dollars in advertisements for the Democrats’ jury-rigged package consisting of the BillyCare bill and some as-yet-undetermined “budget reconciliation” measure. The ads reportedly will target wavering Democrats.
But supporters of BillyCare will continue to attack opponents as shills for insurance companies, demonizing, as Obama puts it, “those who profit from the status quo.”
Let’s look at those profits. Drug makers’ combined profit margin last year was 22.2 percent, compared with insurers’ 4.4 percent. Drug maker Merck’s net income, $12.9 billion, exceeds that of the 10 largest insurers combined”
The insurance companies have been demonized for the past decade or more. My impression in personal dealings are that the big drivers on the runaway cost side are the drug companies and hospitals themselves due to an environment manufactured in Washington. The insurance companies are operating in a very difficult environment.
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