The one thing that this Trump administration has been able to uncover for Americans is how big the actual “swamp” of corporate-controlled corruption can be. The New York Timesreports that Trump has a new executive order to go with his other awful edicts.
The draft, which The New York Times obtained on Tuesday, is light on specifics but clear on philosophy: Easing regulatory hurdles for the drug industry is the best way to get prices down.
The proposals identify some issues that have stoked public outrage — such as the high out-of-pocket costs for medicines — but it largely leaves the drug industry unscathed. In fact, the four-page document contains several proposals that have long been championed by the industry, including strengthening drugmakers’ monopoly power overseas and scaling back a federal program that requires pharmaceutical companies to give discounts to hospitals and clinics that serve low-income patients.
An example of the hard-hitting Trump is doing here includes lifting bothersome regulations on pharmaceutical companies like having to offer a bunch of discounts to hospitals that serve lower income patients. Poor people are the worst.
“That’s one that sticks out as a bit of a head scratcher,” said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who was a top F.D.A. official under President Barack Obama. “This is the executive order to lower drug prices — why would you put in a provision that would raise drug prices?”
No need to scratch your head. Donald Trump is as crooked as a Trump-dollar-bill. According to Kaiser Health News, who received similar documents concerning this upcoming executive order, the entire proposal is like a wish list from the pharmaceutical industry.
- Extending the patent life of drugs in foreign markets to “provide for protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights.” This will ensure “that American consumers do not unfairly subsidize research and development for people throughout the globe.”
That’s allowing pharmaceutical companies to hold onto exclusive drug patents longer, before less expensive generics can be offered elsewhere. There are a few other pieces to make you punch a wall but the one thing in all of this discussion that is clearly not going to happen with this executive order is a reduction in the drug prices.
“This six-page document contains the kind of solutions to the cost-of-drugs problem that you would get if you gathered together all the executives of pharma and asked them ‘What sort of token gestures can we do?’” said Vinay Prasad, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Sciences University who studies the costs of cancer drugs.
So far, lobbyists are the only people being allowed by Senate majority dickhead Mitch McConnell into the area where he and fellow Republicans keep their AHCA cauldron of tax breaks. Trump, like his Republican brethren, subscribes to the classic sociopathic theory that you tell people one thing while doing whatever the hell you want to do and then blame everyone else when you get called on it.