Friday, January 13, 2017

Doing the bidding of big pharma

The Huffington Post reports that Cory Booker And A Bunch Of Democrats Prove Trump Right On Big Pharma
13 Democrats did the industry’s bidding last night.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump said Americans were paying too much for prescription drugs because big pharmaceutical companies have too much power in Washington. “We have to … create new bidding procedures for the drug industry, because they’re getting away with murder,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “Pharma has a lot of lobbies, a lot of lobbyists and a lot of power.”

The murder spree continued into the final hour of Wednesday night, as 13 Senate Democrats proved Trump right by joining 39 Republicans to vote down a bill designed to lower prescription drug prices.

Pharmaceutical companies have the highest profit margins of any industry, and prescription drug prices are increasing by an average of over 18 percent per year. Well before Trump gave his press conference, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) had crafted a budget resolution designed to rein in medication prices by allowing cheaper, identical versions of prescription drugs to be imported from other countries, including Canada, where medicines are cheaper.

Twelve Republicans voted for the bill ― more than enough to ensure its passage. It failed by a vote of 46 to 52 because 13 Democrats opposed it.
Read more here.

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