OH-Sen: Sherrod Brown (D) Slams Trump On Another Broken Promise, Lowering...
Received this e-mail today from U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown’s (D. OH) re-election campaign:"Prescription drug spending has increased 10 percent annually for Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) members...
View ArticleOH-Sen: Sherrod Brown (D) Pushes Plan To Crack Down On Big Pharma's...
Received this e-mail today from U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown’s (D. OH) re-election campaign:This excerpt of a 2015 Forbes interview with former Turing Pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli pretty well sums...
View ArticleTrump's next executive order will give big pharma more control over raising...
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...
View ArticleThe Trump plan to lower drug prices has turned into a Trump giveaway to the...
After a campaign of bleating about high drug prices for Americans and how he was going to do ... things ... about that, it turns out that the team of drug industry advocates and insiders Donald Trump...
View ArticleNeoliberal Dems think that us Midwesterners enjoy a failing healthcare system...
The Washington Post is reporting that a group of neoliberal Democrats are now trying to push back against efforts by progressives to make meaningful reforms to the failing health care system in this...
View ArticleBig Pharma Now Using Tribal Law To Protect Their Patents
Allergan is the maker and patent holder for Restasis which is used to treat chronically dry eyes. It is a billion dollar drug for the company and, along with Botox, accounts for around 30% of the...
View ArticleA Medical Doctor Gives Four Reasons Why US Healthcare is so Expensive
Nicholas Fogelson, MD, is a practicing surgeon who blogs at Academic OB/GYN. In a series of short blog essays he has outlined four items that he sees as key contributors to the rise of healthcare...
View ArticleVT-Sen: CREDO Action Builds Momentum For Bernie Sanders' Bill To Let Medicare...
Received this e-mail today from CREDO Action:Donald Trump spent most of 2016 insisting he would attack the pharmaceutical drug companies behind skyrocketing prices. But ever since he seized office, he...
View ArticleTrump's drug company price hiker gets his nomination hearing
The former president of Eli Lilly's U.S. business, Alex Azar, faced a hostile group of Democrats in his confirmation hearing Tuesday. Tapped by the current occupier of the Oval Office to be Secretary...
View ArticleWhy Would Joe Jimenez, Former Novartis CEO, Pay Cohen $400k And Then Resign?
For those not familiar with money-making at a drug company like Novartis, it’s all about patents and when they expire, ie when generics can eat their profits. And in 2016/2017 Novartis was already...
View ArticleVT-Sen: Bernie Sanders Calls On Congress To Let Dept. Of HHS Negotiate Prices...
Received this e-mail today from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ (I. VT) re-election campaign:During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised to take on the outrageously high prices of the...
View ArticleDespite Trump's promise to lower drug prices, costs for Viagra, blood...
One of the big problems facing our healthcare system is the rising cost of medicine. The rising costs of medicine are dictated by “the market.” The “market” is a made-up construct that must continue to...
View ArticleNearly 30 pharmaceutical companies plan to raise their prices in 2019
Hey, as long as weed stays the same price, I’ll somehow get through the next two years. But this is terrible news for a lot of vulnerable people.From Reuters:Novartis AG (NOVN.S) and Bayer AG...
View ArticleThe House Holds a Hearing. On Health Care, Not Hate or Hillary.
Someday, the US will have a rational health care system. What will trigger such an event is as yet undetermined, but truth and outrage in the halls of the House of Representatives is one step.Today,...
View ArticleDrug prices, pharmaceuticals' political influence emerge as flash point for...
One in the long list of non sequiturs and incoherent thoughts presented in the State of the Union mess Tuesday night was this: "The next major priority for me, and for all of us, should be to lower the...
View ArticleVaginal Estrogen: No Price Too High? or Dreams of a Canadian Pharmacy
I'm a health care provider who has been shocked by the meteoric rise of the cost of vaginal estrogen preparations, which alleviate intense menopausal vulvovaginal dryness and irritation. This is a...
View ArticleTrump’s Bent Knee to Pharma
As reported in a Apr 18 Wash Post article by Christopher Rowland, Trump is actively blocking a way to control runaway drug prices. Amazingly there is a legal provision in the Bayh Dole Act that allows...
View ArticleAhh- the gentle caress of the "free market's" invisible hand [oh-and paying...
Just one more case of socialization for the free loaders at the top of the chain and vulture capitalism for the rest of us- A study by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Sch of Public Health comparing how other...
View ArticleOut-of-pocket costs for multiple sclerosis medications have quadrupled during...
New research published in JAMA Neurology on Monday reports that the annual cost of “self-administered disease-modifying therapies for multiple sclerosis more than quadrupled” between 2006-2016, raising...
View ArticleDo Big Pharma Profits = Better Medicine?
A common refrain from the Pharma companies is that without sky high US drug prices they could not afford to innovate and produce new cures and improved medical treatments. Patients will die if they...
View ArticleMoscow Mitch says 'nyet' to cutting into drug companies' massive profits and...
The Medicare prescription drug plan House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced Thursday coincided with the release of an Axios analysis showing that the health care industry "continued to rake in...
View ArticleHouse Democrats ready to move drug pricing bill, Big Pharma and Mitch...
While Moscow Mitch McConnell stood on the Senate floor Thursday morning declaring, "Democrats are too busy hosting a panel of law professors to criticize President Trump on television instead of the...
View ArticleRemember when Trump promised to back Medicare negotiating drug prices? Now...
Donald Trump is a liar. Shocking, I know. But I’m not talking about the thousands of lies—actually it’s now well over 10,000—he has told in the course of his time occupying the Oval Office. Today I’m...
View ArticleCalifornia's governor to propose making the Golden State the first to sell...
California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is set to unveil a proposal on Friday that would make the Golden State the first in the country to sell its own brand of generic prescription drugs. According...
View ArticleTrump’s SOTU: Investors in drug makers ‘should be relieved,’ analyst says
You know when Wall Street is pleased the chances of the 99% getting screwed are high:Many analysts had predicted that President Donald Trump would highlight a push for an international pricing index in...
View ArticleMoscow Mitch makes it clear with opposition to prescription drug pricing...
Impeached president Donald Trump has made lots of supportive noises about a bill with bipartisan support in the Senate to bring down drug prices, written by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and...
View ArticleNC-Sen: Tillis (R) Busted Taking $20,500 From Big Pharma To Push Bill Opposed...
From WBTV Investigates:Senator Thom Tillis accepted more than $20,000 in campaign contributions from political action committees tied to pharmaceutical companies within two weeks of sponsoring a bill...
View ArticleTrump's big health care plan is just a 'taxpayer-funded bribe' to senior voters
The "health care plan"unveiled Thursday at a Trump rally billed as a presidential address is actually worth even less than the paper he signed to "enact" it. Nothing Trump puts forward in the orders...
View ArticleKatie Porter takes price-gouging Big Pharma executive to school with her...
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform (COR) held a hearing today with CEOs of three pharmaceutical companies Teva, Celgene and Bristol Myers Squibb (which acquired Celgene) over drug pricing and...
View ArticleKatie Porter reminds pharma CEO how much of his $13 mil salary came from...
Democratic Rep. Katie Porter has spent her first couple of years in Congress really working hard to point out the corruption and greed being perpetrated by the CEOs of major industries. She’s exposed...
View ArticleTime to Bypass Big Pharma
One thing that will not substantially change as a new government takes power in January 2021 is the near-total lack of advocacy for our needs, as living human beings, where they conflict with the...
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NOW it makes sense why Manchin is a 'no' on Tanden: She called out his...
I’d been trying to make sense of Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) intention to vote ‘no’ on Neera Tanden’s nomination as director of the Office of Management and Budget (other than pure misogyny, which is very...
View ArticleDrugs Companies Fined $360 million For Price Fixing
The UK Competitions (anti-trust) regulator has fined various drugs companies £260 million over a scheme which resulted in a drug increasing in price by over 12,000%. In it the original maker made a...
View ArticleMedicare Part D: WTF is up with 2022 premiums?
I know that those gawd-awful Republicans, and apparently some Dems, too, are balking at doing what EVERY OTHER CIVILIZED NATION ON THIS PLANET is doing and refusing to negotiate a good deal on drug...
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Top Comments: Medicare and Drug Prices Edition
I am taking a one week break from my travel photo diaries to write about a meeting I had today with my congresswoman’s office. If you are looking for the continuation of those diaries, tune in next...
View ArticleAD for '22
DRUG prices!!! “Big Pharma is addicted to price gouging, (Compare insulin prices in US with several other countries, add other gouge priced drugs) Republicans are addicted to big Pharma campaign...
View ArticleSenate Democrats give into Manchin on climate, consider making Republicans...
The House voted to codify marriage equality Tuesday, giving gay and interracial marriages federal protections in the Respect for Marriage Act. The surprise element in the vote was the 47 Republicans...
View ArticleThe country can't afford to give the Senate five weeks off for August recess
It’s already the weekend for Congress, never mind that they have a whole load of days not at work in the Capitol ahead of them. Senate has just two short work weeks before heading out on August...
View ArticleRaise Taxes on Rich, Not Interest Rates on Working Stiffs to Combat Inflation
By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.comInflation, inflation, inflation.The “I” word is a constant refrain, achieving its intended goal of stirring anger and resentment. Gas prices high? But they’ve...
View ArticleAbout those anti drug price setting ads
No doubt you've seen those TV ads against “drug price setting.” The ones that moan about price setting cutting off research on new drugs.They infuriate me. They are based on the fantasy that drug...
View ArticleTHE BAD NEWS ABOUT THE GOOD NEWS
The AARP Bulletin was in my mailbox when I got home from a county Dems meeting today, and I was pretty pleased to see the story on the cover. AARP membership is somewhere in the range of 40 million...
View ArticleBiden 'intensely' focused on continuing to lower drug costs
President Joe Biden is focused “intensely” on lowering health care costs, he said Wednesday before an audience of doctors and nurses a the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, drawing a sharp contrast with...
View ArticleDon't look now but Biden's signature economic policy is paying off
It’s been just over one year since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, and there are already a lot of wins to celebrate.Tuesday, the Biden administration announced the first 10...
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Soaring Prescription Drug Prices and Senator Bernie Sanders’ Battle for Change
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...
View ArticleNew York announces plan to address major need: Medical debt relief
New York City announced on Monday that it will spend $18 million over three years to wipe out more than $2 billion in medical debt, affecting around half a million New Yorkers. The city will coordinate...
View ArticleDrugmakers OD on insane prices, incessant commercials
Prices for prescription drugs in America average almost three times as much as the prices paid in other major nations around the world. Adding insult to injury, the companies that set those prices are...
View ArticleSeniors could save $1.5B on prescriptions, thanks to Biden and Harris
Thanks to a provision of the Biden-Harris administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, Medicare is now allowed to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug costs. On Thursday, the...
View ArticleIt's just weird to describe Medicare's ability to negotiate drug prices as...
A group calling them Seniors for Better Care (Seniors4BetterCare dot com) takes issue with the “liberals in Congress” as they “push to expand the Biden-Harris price fixing agenda for prescription...
View ArticleHarris is Focused on reducing costs
Please enjoy the new campaign ad entitled Focused by the Harris-Walz campaign addressing the reason we’re paying too much for groceries and drugs. It’s a stark contrast to Project 2025 where the want...
View ArticleTrump promised a health care plan exactly 4 years ago—so where is it?
Exactly four years ago on Oct. 22, CBS News aired an interview with Donald Trump with "60 Minutes" reporter Leslie Stahl in which Trump promised he was going to release a "fully developed" health care...
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