The United States is the richest nation in history, but its citizens have terrible access to healthcare, with the United States ranking 21st in the UNDP’s Human Development Index, and Americans paying around 150% more for prescription drugs compared to the global average. Sen. Bernie Sanders is known for battling Big Pharma, who have lobbied to create this eye-gouging system that oppresses so many Americans. Despite Medicare negotiating with Big Pharma to negotiate for lower prices under the Inflation Reduction Act’s provisions, and the senator's efforts to push Democrats and President Biden to do more, the senator remained unhappy, feeling that the president’s measures did not go far enough. He promised that he would block the president’s health care nominations until more was done. The senator’s efforts for more aggressive measures have taken another blow, with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which the senator chairs, voting 15-6 to confirm Dr. Monica Bertagnolli as its pick for leader of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Bertagnolli received votes from Republicans, and all 10 Democrats. The wider consequence of this is that the senator’s demands for more aggressive actions are likely to go unheeded.
The senator was worried that Dr. Bertagnolli would be in thrall to Big Pharma and not be aggressive enough in pushing back against their greed and fighting to drive down the United States’ horrendous prices. They are some of the most expensive drug prices in the world compared to a country like Canada, just across the border. However, the senator’s Democratic colleagues felt that Dr. Bertagnolli had shown a thoughtful appreciation for the NIH’s challenges. The Republican committee members who voted for her seem to be driven by a feeling that the NIH deserves more support, after being ravaged during the pandemic. Dr. Bertagnolli is likely to succeed in her confirmation bid, given the degree of support she has.
The worry for the senator will be that his tools to force more aggressive action seem limited. There is no great appetite for transformational action. There is, instead, a feeling that piecemeal reform is best. And so, Americans will have to be satisfied with the cost-reduction measures in the Inflation Reduction Act. There is also a fear that in backing the senator, Democrats may become unpopular at a time when the focus is on unity in the face of the threat of Trump. And so, Sanders was defeated once again.
We have to ask ourselves just how we have allowed the situation to get this bad. There is a kind of myth that the historic wealth of this wonderful country implies that Americans enjoy world-leading standards of living. Instead, what we see is a system that benefits the oligarchs, oligopolies and monopolies, extracting as much wealth as possible from its citizens. We are very far from the standards set in Europe and East and Southeast Asia, where healthcare access is high and prescription drug prices are cheap. We are left helpless against a ravenous Big Pharma, and there seems no real appetite to change things. Seemingly minor, the senator’s failure to block this nomination shows that piecemeal reform is the order of the day.