Emily
MikeI think this is the saddest I’ve felt about the Obama administration. During the campaign, President Obama promised to fight the drug industry so that Americans can get cheaper prescription medicine by importing it from countries like Canada. He said: “We’ll tell the pharmaceutical companies ‘thanks, but no, thanks’ for the overpriced drugs — drugs that cost twice as much here as they do in Europe and Canada.” Millions of Americans are forced to pay up to 10 times the prices Canadians and Europeans pay for identical medication, which is often produced in the same facilities by the same manufacturers.
Yesterday, the Senate rejected two proposals that would have provided exactly what Obama had promised. The proposals would have saved the federal government $19 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. And consumers would have saved many times that.
The really sad part is that the Obama administration actively worked to prevent the proposals from passing. In other words, Obama completely broke his promise and sided with the big-money lobbyists of the drug industry, which is among the top 10 contributors to federal election campaigns, having given more than $130 million to those campaigns over the past 10 years.
This was part of the broader health care legislation. Earlier this year, the pharmaceutical industry had reached a “deal” with the administration that would allegedly cut their profits by $80 billion over 10 years and, in return, the Obama administration would not cut their profits any more. (Also, Obama wanted the industry to spend advertising dollars in support of health care reform.) In fact, to me, it didn’t seem like a “deal” at all, but a non-binding promise by the drug companies that they could break whenever they felt like it. And the drug industry has already raised prescription prices nearly 10 percent this year.
Obama even issued a letter from the Food and Drug Administration that cited safety concerns by importing drugs. That is bogus information since it doesn’t address the fact that there are safety issues when purchasing drugs from U.S. companies, who frequently have the drugs manufactures in places like China and India.
Consumer advocacy groups are obviously appalled by this. For instance, AARP, the lobby group for older Americans, said: “Senators had a choice between meaningful savings for their constituents and higher profits for the drug industry. We’ll be letting our members know where they stood.” Even John McCain is on the right side this time, saying that “[i]t’s really regrettable that the special interests again prevail.”
When will Obama learn to fight for the things he believes in. Obviously, compromise is necessary to get his things through Congress. But it seems as if he has abandoned too many things too early and too easily.
Filed under: Health, Law Tagged: | Barack Obama, Drug Prices, Health Care
