“This was an unexpected victory in a long fight against an illegal cartel of three corporations who have raised their insulin prices in lockstep.”
“This was an unexpected victory in a long fight against an illegal cartel of three corporations who have raised their insulin prices in lockstep.”
The Biden Administration pleasantly stunned health care reform advocates Tuesday by including short-acting insulin in its list of 10 drugs for which Medicare will negotiate lower prices, power vested in the White House by the Inflation Reduction Act.
The IRA was passed in the face of one of the heftiest barrages of lobbying in congressional history, with the pharmaceutical industry spending more than $700 million over 2021 and 2022 — several times more than the second- and third-ranking industries — much of it aimed at stopping the legislation, watering it down, or undermining its implementation.
Here’s some good news about that with California making its own insulins:
The state-label insulins will cost no more than $30 per 10 milliliter vial, and no more than $55 for a box of five pre-filled pen cartridges — for both insured and uninsured patients. The medicines will be available nationwide, the governor's office said.
"If you're pre-born, you're fine. If you're preschool, you're fucked." -- George Carlin
Except even that isn't true, because those "choose life" assholes don't give two fucks about poor women without insurance being unable to afford pre-natal care. If your fetus dies from something preventable, fuck you lady.
The problem is the government can't set the price of goods in a private contract between two non-government entities, which is what would need to happen. The various bills you see in states setting co-pay caps is about as close as we can get, and that only happens because the government CAN regulate insurance companies and the policies they offer. While that might, eventually, put pressure on the insurance companies to demand lower prices from the manufacturers, it's a long way disconnected from the price paid by the patient.
And regulating copays doesn't help people without insurance at all.
That's why this is such an important step. When prescription coverage was added to Medicare, the ability of the government to negotiate drug prices was specifically striped from the bill. The Inflation Reduction Act added it back, finally. And it's a huge win. Medicare and Medicaid are enormous programs, and when they throw their weight around, they can affect the markets they're in dramatically. It's why the drug companies are already filing suit.
But the real solution isn't trying to force private insurance companies to play ball, or make drug manufacturers sell at a low price, it's to leverage that giant market pressure and expand Medicare eligibility to everyone. And if you're worried about funding? Don't be. Unlike social security, Medicare's tax has no maximum wage.
government can't set the price of goods in a private contract between two non-government entities
What about IRS? I mean they should report taxes. So if they refuse money they report they are getting paid, then it is low-hanging tax fraud. Probably. At least in Europe it would be.
Don't negotiate. Take your money out of big pharma. They're only doing this to "make money for their investors". If you know anyone who is invested, they are living off of blood money. Cancel big pharma.
The suits make similar and overlapping claims that Medicare negotiations are unconstitutional.
The companies argue that the talks would force drugmakers to sell their medicines at huge discounts, below market rates. They assert this violates the Fifth Amendment, which requires the government to pay reasonable compensation for private property taken for public use.
The suits also argue that the process violates drugmakers’ free speech rights under the First Amendment, essentially forcing companies to agree that Medicare is negotiating a fair price.
They also contend that the talks violate the Eighth Amendment by levying an excessive fine if drugmakers refuse to engage in the process.
A great way to tell that a business is making way too much money is when they can afford to hire monkey cages full of lawyers to fling every terrible legal argument they can think of at you in the hope that one of them somehow sticks.
The companies argue that the talks would force drugmakers to sell their medicines at huge discounts, below market rates. They assert this violates the Fifth Amendment, which requires the government to pay reasonable compensation for private property taken for public use.
It will be interesting to watch this shake out, because this decision could have a lot of knock-off effects when it comes to further price negotiations by the government across a wide array of sectors.
At this point the first amendment is just their catchall for any time they want to stop the government doing something, isnt it? Selling drugs isnt speech, making cakes or websites isn't speech, you fucking monsters don't have to like it and you don't have to pretend to like it, you just have to stop destroying people for money.
The suits also argue that the process violates drugmakers’ free speech rights under the First Amendment, essentially forcing companies to agree that Medicare is negotiating a fair price.
When your reaction to poor, sick human beings getting the medicine they need without losing everything else in their lives is disappointment, you're a bad person.
Fuck market capitalism and the sociopaths it creates.
Edit: and of course they're actively suing from their steel towers for the right to continue to gouge sick, poor people deeper into poverty. What a humane economic system, amirite?
Both parties have let them do just that for 43 years. Of course they're gonna sue. Honestly wouldn't be surprised if a lawsuit becomes an excuse for Democrats to throw out exceedingly beneficial legislation like this.
They don't let them do it, both parties are fully in the tank for the owners.
Americans mistake are going after our politician middle managers in Washington. Our oppressors operate out of Wall Street. The RNC and the DNC don't promote you to federal level races unless you've proven to be a good "fundraiser" aka bribe taker, making the only potentially not purchased Congress people spoilers that jumped the line and succeeded like AOC.
Our system, imho is fucked beyond any hope of repair.
Either Collapse or revolution is inevitable though Collapse is far more likely as we're a cowardly people.
That’s exactly what’s going to happen. This is being done so that Biden has something to talk about during his campaign stops. Very typical politician behavior. And completely insincere.
You’re not kidding. Somebody did a survey in 2018 of insulin prices around the world, and here are the top ten most expensive:
United States — $98.70
Chile — $21.48
Mexico — $16.48
Japan — $14.40
Switzerland — $12.46
Canada — $12.00
Germany — $11.00
Korea — $10.30
Luxembourg — $10.15
Italy — $10.03
The study revealed that the manufacturer price for any given type of insulin averaged five to ten times higher in the U.S. ($98.70 USD) than in all other OECD countries ($8.81 on average).
In before the "quality product" argument gets brought up, like the US is the gold standard in medicine and no other country can produce it at an equivalent level. Every other country can produce it but it's 5-10x the price in the US, it's straight greed
I don't know how this is a negotiation...big pharma overcharges the USA by a lot...we all know it. How is this not illegal? Why are they not held accountable for inflating prices for 1 group of people? Imagine if they did the to just a single race...black, white, Asian, whatever... Is t it the same thing?
A product which is only necessary for one group of people. A group who, through circumstances likely beyond their control, need that medication to maintain a healthy life. Thinking of life saving medication as a product to be sold is the problem.
Biden is fine. A lot of people are looking for someone who is going to revolutionize things overnight. A lot of folks also like to give the President blame or credit for things out of his control. Overall I've been pleasantly surprised. All I really wanted was not Trump, but Biden has been a lot better than that.
ive been waiting 40 years for democrats to do something that didnt line insurance companies pockets. im still waiting. how much longer until this 'revolution' youre expecting? i suspect ill be long dead.
biden is an ancient husk of a politician, doing the bare minimum that the dems have been doing for as long as i can remember. this is not revolution, this is conservatism.
its sad that this 'bare minimum' is now seen as 'a lot better than not trump'
If we pretend Trump wasn't a thing, I'd say Biden is really living up to his campaign promise of "nothing will fundamentally change." By that I mean, he hasn't personally done anything amazing or terrible, and he hasn't gotten in the way of others, either.
For instance, this has the fingerprints of Bernie Sanders all over it, who chairs several committees in congress, including the relevant one for this. Has Biden stopped Bernie Sanders? No, and while I wish that fact wasn't a win, it is.
Bernie isn't alone in being the only good thing about our current government, either, but Biden also hasn't removed some of the terrible things the trump administration set up. The Environmental Protection Agency has rolled back a bunch of things I'm very upset about. It is my personal belief that he's heavily influenced by certain groups (insurance) but is trying in other areas.
Biden isn't at all supporting policies that are just common sense if you live anywhere else, and while the UK isn't the best, I've discussed this with a British friend and I still include them in that. In short, you have more protections from your government that they need to try to remove first.
In my opinion if Biden had been elected after Obama or after a normal Republican he would've basically had a quiet presidency and been one of the ones you don't really mention in history because nothing happened. Standard calls for corruption, but not worse than any regular senators. In today's world, that's positive, with Republican candidates promising to abolish the department of education, but in another world where things aren't full of neonazis and fascists, I'd be saying it's awful, because I would have wanted a president that would change things for the better, and now I'm just beaten down enough to be ok with "Nothing will fundamentally change."
" I’d say Biden is really living up to his campaign promise of “nothing will fundamentally change.”"
Oh hey, people are still using the purposefully false claim where Biden in a speech to rich people said he was going to raise their taxes and they should be fine with him doing it because they're rich and nothing will fundamentally change about their lifestyle.
But, hey, keep taking that statement out of context like the trash you are.
To borrow a couple of lines written for the UK in the 60s:
Think the time is right for palace revolution
But where I live the game to play is compromise solution
Biden is a well meaning old man whittling away at the problems the best he can within the rules of the system. The problem is that the system has been rigged against working people for at least 40 years now; some people feel the problems go deeper than what you can solve by being by the book and doing politics as usual.
To me, Biden is like a bandage to stop the bleeding the Republicans were inflicting. When you are bleeding out, you don't really care what the bandage looks like or whether or not it's the perfect bandage. Now that the bandage has stopped the worst of the bleeding, I'm going to be a little pickier.
the truth is, biden and his peers are conservatives who do not believe that healthcare is a right. its only for those that can afford it. They attempt to appease the masses with these generous rebates on life saving drugs.
if the powers that be really cared about humans they would be pushing mass changes to the entire system, not placating businesses by keeping prices high while also pretending to negotiate for the unwashed.
follow the money, and all the money says "we dont care about healthcare or human beings"
that whole line about "but we cant affect change overnight. those crazy progressives!". motherfucker, ive been waiting 40+ years for them to do fucking anything that didnt line some providers pockets.
I have no idea why you got downvoted on this comment. With the exception of the Democratic Socialist subset, most Democrats are pretty conservative. Remove the white Christian bigotry and they're pretty similar Regan era Republicans.
Things are better than they were under Trump in that our head of state is no longer an overt bigot that tends towards embarrassing antics. It’s more like how things were before. The problem is the way things were before sucked. So it looks better but still is a neoliberal cesspool on this side of the pond.
But at least we can still get a few hundred varieties of potato chips! We’re fine!
You know who the real enemy in all of this is.....
Anyone is making a fraction of a cent off of squeezing the literal life out of American citizens by keeping their money invested in "big pharma". I am more than sure there are walking hypocrites out there that have had a loved one die while making money off their death.
If you care about this issue, tell everyone you know to de-invest in these companies.
I am going to throw this out there. I worked on waste processing systems for pharm companies for about 4 years, no it wasn't every day, it was like one out of three projects.
Those pieces of garbage waste money harder and faster than any other industry or government I have ever dealt with. And that includes the US military, the gangster government of Saudi Arabia, and just plainly badly run factories. This is just one story
I designed some software for a system that reduced one chemical that was hard to dispose of into two easy to dispose of ones. No big deal. Sent it out and wrapped up in few days. Come in one morning to see this email exchange, heavily paraphrased
"Please inform (my name) that he is to fly into site for a Monday meeting to discuss the problems"
"He designed the software this is a chemistry problem"
"We want everyone on the project there"
"Again he is the software guy this is a chemistry problem"
"We want everyone on the project there"
"Why can't he just sit in a conference call? He has other projects"
"We want everyone on the project there"
They flew me out, put me in a hotel, got me a rental car, paid for 4 meals, all so I could sit in for that 30 minute meeting and contribute nothing. There was well over 20 people in that room. I chatted with a few. This is welder, this is the concrete guy, this was an electrician, this was the tech that ran an Ethernet cord, this was the boiler guy. All of us sitting there while the chemical engineer just repeat back what he said in the email that they have to clean the tanks again.
Btw my employer charged 2 grand a day for me on site and 2 grand for travelling on top of expenses. I had sushi for dinner that night and stayed in a 3 star hotel, eating your grandma's insulin money. You try to imagine what kinda money we are talking about. Over 20 highly skilled techs and engineers having to travel there. Go hire an electrician for a day and see what you get charged.
I want to tell this story to every bootlicker pharm shill in this country. This kinda shit is where the money is going. Not into R&D it is going so one manager could say they did their due diligence.
It must be getting close to a US election year. Suddenly, a Democratic president feigns to give a shit about the people who voted for him. Albeit grudgingly, of course, and knowing whatever he suggests now will be so watered down by the time it’s executed it will be like nothing happened at all.
You're right, but also it's better than nothing. If it were a republican in office they'd be doing the opposite and taking things away for the same reason, so I'll take it.
If the end result is the same theres no need to go through the song and dance. They will do all this carrot/stick politicking until the primaries then drop all discussion of progressive talk. Rince and repeat every 2 years.
How is that even applicable to this situation? It’s not as if he’s going to actually make this happen. There’s not even an actual gift horse to look in the mouth. It’s just political theater.
I almost would rather he just callously tell us pharma profits and campaign donations are more important to him and his stock portfolio than our health care needs. But that’s the kind of honesty we got from the last guy… and nobody in their right mind wants him back despite his, uh, version of “honesty” 🤮
I've never understood that expression. The gift horse was hiding Greek soldiers that sacked the city. If someone had looked inside, Troy might not have fallen.
Dumb idea, I know nothing about this all. What about alternatively opening up across-the-border purchases, allowing people to legally buy from other countries at a fraction of current US prices. Drug companies can still set their US, uncontrolled prices at whatever they want, & no one has to buy it from them. It'd be like, a Free Market at work. I know this is oversimplified & there's a lot of complications I'm not aware of, but, just a thought.
Also, speaking of unconstitutional, isn't group collusion to manipulate the market a violation of Sherman Anti-Trust law? Just saying.
For sure a valid question. My presumption is that the same drugs legally produced & sold under that country's regulations would have a reasonable factor of safety. Good enough for their own people anyway.
I think also if I'm faced with the decision, no insulin because I can't afford it, or drugs only approved to Country X standards, I'm already in a risky situation. For sure some people are already doing this & having to do so illegally.
Another song and dance, the guy that been the highest recipient of pharma lobbying isnt gonna hurt their profits. The shellgame will just shift money around until election day to make it look like hes doing good for us