WASHINGTON - “They can’t afford to see the movement for single payer grow,’’ said John Rother, legislative and policy director for AARP.
What, 80% support not enough?
She is the voice of a wealthy industry....
--more--"As if they needed her:
"Healthcare senators have industry ties; Legislators hold stock in Merck, Pfizer, and others" by Larry Margasak and Sharon Theimer, Associated Press | June 13, 2009
WASHINGTON - Influential senators working to overhaul the nation's healthcare system have investments and family ties with some of the biggest names in the industry. The wife of Senator Chris Dodd, who is in charge of writing the Senate's bill, sits on the boards of four healthcare companies.
Members of both parties have industry connections, including Democrats Jay Rockefeller and Tom Harkin and Republicans Tom Coburn, Judd Gregg, John Kyl, and Orrin Hatch, financial disclosure reports showed yesterday. Jackie Clegg Dodd, wife of the Connecticut Democrat, sits on the boards of Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc.,
Can you say conflict-of-interest or what? BOTH SIDES of the aisle!
Just as Sicko said.
Dodd is filling in for ailing Senator Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the health committee, which is drafting one of the major healthcare bills. Other publicly available documents show that Jackie Dodd last year was one of the most highly compensated non-employee members of the Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc. board, on which she has served since 2004. She earned $32,000 in fees and $109,587 in stock option awards last year, according to the company's SEC filings.
She earned $79,063 in fees from Cardiome in its last fiscal year, while Brookdale Senior Living gave her $122,231 in stock awards in 2008, their SEC filings show. She earned no income from her post as a director for Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals but holds up to $15,000 in stock in Pear Tree, which describes itself as focusing on the needs of aging women.
Bryan DeAngelis, the senator's spokesman, said, "Jackie Clegg Dodd's career is her own; absolutely independent of Senator Dodd, as it was when they married 10 years ago."
(Blog editor is simply flailing about with his arms. This explains so much of what is wrong in Washington, and why healthcare reform is going to be s***)
Also see: AIG: Insults and Arrogance
Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, reported $15,001 to $50,000 in capital gains for his wife from the sale of a stake in Athenahealth Inc., a business services company that helps medical providers with billing and clinical operations.
Yup, telcoms bought him off on spying and retroactive -- and unconstitutional -- immunity, and now this.
Harkin of Iowa jointly owns with his wife shares of drug makers
Coburn, of Oklahoma, is a practicing physician. He reported slight business income, $268, from the Muskogee Allergy Clinic last year; $3,000 to $45,000 in stock in
"Liberal Democrat," "Conservative Republican," it doesn't much matter, does it? ALL on the TAKE!
Gregg, of New Hampshire, disclosed $1,000 to $15,000 each in stock in pharmaceutical companies
Kyl of Arizona reported $15,001 to $50,000 in stock in Amgen Inc., which develops medical therapeutics, and his retirement account held stakes in several healthcare businesses.
And Utah's Hatch, who is on the health committee and also on the finance committee that is writing its own healthcare bill, reported owning between $1,001 and $15,000 worth of stock in drug maker Pfizer Inc.--more--"
And you wonder why the legislation comes out looking like it does?
"Healthcare firms load up on lobbyists" by Associated Press | July 7, 2009
WASHINGTON - The nation’s largest insurers, hospitals, and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosures and other records.
The tactic is so widespread that three of every four major healthcare firms have at least one former insider on their lobbying payrolls, according to The Washington Post’s analysis.
What, they have 'em over for dinner?
Nearly half of the insiders previously worked for the key committees and lawmakers....
The hirings are part of a record-breaking influence campaign by the healthcare industry, which is spending more than $1.4 million a day on lobbying in the current fight, according to disclosure records.
This while YOU SUFFER HORRIBLY, America, and are told you can't have a single-payer plan.
Overall, healthcare companies and their representatives spent more than $126 million on lobbying in the first quarter, leading all other industries, according to Senate data and the Center for Responsive Politics. The television ad wars are also beginning and expected to grow this summer....
--more--"
I must need to see a doctor because I've got this strange pain inside me. Feels like a broken heart or some such thing. Hurts. Maybe it was something I read.
WASHINGTON - Biotechnology drugs made by Amgen Inc. and Biogen Idec Inc. could not be copied and sold for lower prices for 13 1/2 years after they are marketed, or twice the time urged by President Obama, under a Senate proposal.
Conflicts of interest: Democrat Tom Harkin; Republican John Kyl
Americans spend more than $60 billion a year on biologic drugs to treat cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and other illnesses, at a cost of as much as $200,000 per patient, Ernst & Young estimates. Generic copies of these treatments are needed to help cut costs in the overhaul of the nation’s $2.5 trillion healthcare system, according to Obama.
The Senate proposal by Massachusetts Democrat Edward M. Kennedy is a placeholder that may be changed or discarded after amendments are filed by other senators....
Katie Huffard, executive director of the Coalition for a Competitive Pharmaceutical Market, a Washington-based organization of employers, insurers, and consumer groups that have lobbied for generic drugs, in an e-mail yesterday:
“At a time when policy makers are looking to lower health costs so more Americans can afford care, Senator Kennedy and others want to go in the opposite direction by keeping monopoly pricing.’’
How sad that the liberal lion and champion of national health care is a complete sellout, 'eh? I guess that is why he is alive and his brother's are dead.
Amgen of Thousand Oaks, Calif., is the largest US biotechnology company. Demand for new products and the promise of higher profit margins have led conventional drugmakers to move into biotechnology.
Yeah, the new "field" is called THERAPEUTICS!
These articles explain so much of what is wrong woth our system, and why the reform stinks. Either way we are f***ed, and these leeches are profiting.
Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG bought partner Genentech Inc., maker of the cancer drug Avastin, in March for $46.8 billion.
Conflict of interest: Harkin again.
Brand-name biologic drugs would get at least nine years of exclusivity aside from patent protection, plus as much as four years for new uses and six months for pediatric studies under Kennedy’s plan. Drugmakers led by Amgen have sought 12 to 14 years of sales before biosimilars enter the market....
I really cringe at the thought of OUR KIDS getting these cancer-caiusing, money-looting poisons, Ted. What happened to you?
--more--"
And then there was this in the same issue (I lost the klink and I'm not wasting time trying to find it?):
"EU finds drug firms make billions stalling generics
EUROPEAN patients, taxpayers and national treasuries are being fleeced of billions of euros because of the big pharmaceutical companies' elaborate campaigns to delay the marketing of cheaper generic drugs, the European Commission says.
"There is something rotten in the state [of the pharmaceutical industry]," said Neelie Kroes, the Competition Commissioner, unveiling the findings of an 18-month inquiry. "Makers of original medicines are actively trying to delay the entry of generic medicines on to their markets."
Ya think?
WASHINGTON - Biotech companies such as Amgen Inc. and Biogen Idec Inc. wouldn’t face competition for 12 years after a drug is sold, a Senate panel agreed. That’s almost twice the time sought by the White House.
In a FREE MARKET society?
The amendment was added Monday, by a 16-to-7 vote, to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee’s proposal to overhaul the US healthcare system. The panel expected to finish work on the measure yesterday. It will be merged with legislation being written by the Senate Finance committee.
Americans spend $60 billion a year on biologics to treat diseases such as cancer and rheumatoid arthritis, at a cost of as much as $200,000 each. Current US laws, which provide for generic competition on chemical pills, don’t allow for cheaper copies of complex drugs made from living cells. The Obama administration backs letting generic biologics on the market after seven years of brand-name sales as a way to trim health costs.
In Europe, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. of Israel, Switzerland-based Novartis AG’s Sandoz division, and Hospira Inc., of Lake Forest, Ill., sell “biosimilar’’ copies of three biologic drugs. The term comes from the biotech industry’s claims that their manufacturing process can’t be replicated and that finished products have slight variances. Generic-drug makers call their copies biogenerics.
Exclusivity refers to years of sales that a brand-name product gets before a lower-cost generic or an improved product that relies on the brand-name data can be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It is separate from patent protection. Generic-drug makers would have to wait for both to run out before marketing their products.
“If this provision was to be adopted, there would be no incentive for generic companies to invest and create more-affordable biogenerics,’’ said Kathleen Jaeger, president of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association.
Twelve years would be the longest market exclusivity for biologics in the world and it may be extended for each new version of a product, Jaeger said. Most countries outside Europe and Canada allow copies after five to seven years, in line with the 1984 US law governing generic versions of conventional pills, she said.--more--"
You know what? You can keep your damn drugs. I don't want them.
"Biotech firms lobby for say on healthcare; $66m effort to protect drug-patent exclusivity" by Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | July 21, 2009
But it is ALL ABOUT YOUR HEALTH and WELLNESS, right?
WASHINGTON - The 46 million Americans without health insurance are probably not spending much time thinking about how Congress should curb monopolies on expensive biotech drugs. But the issue, which offers a case study in the ways of Washington influence, is among dozens that have spurred a lobbying frenzy this summer as Congress debates a historic healthcare overhaul.
Biotech firms, big pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, doctors, and players from every corner of the US healthcare industry are working hard to protect profits, as the government seeks ways to hold down the cost of expanding health insurance to all Americans.
Pharmaceutical interests alone, including many from Massachusetts, spent more than $66 million on lobbying in just the first quarter of this year, up 25 percent from last year, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Drug companies accounted for more than half of all healthcare lobbying.
This as the economy has collapsed for you and me, readers.
Something is rotten in the state of America!
“They are on pace to obliterate their total lobbying expenditures from any other previous year,’’ said Dave Levinthal, the center’s communications director.
The intense effort by biopharmaceutical companies that are clustered in Cambridge and Boston, as well as California and a few other places around the country, provides an example of how these battles have kicked into overdrive.
Biotech firms produce the most expensive drugs on the market, charging $10,000 to $100,000 a year for a single patient, and generics would seriously undercut those prices. In their quest to win a 12-year exclusivity period for their drugs, free from such competition, biotech companies have launched a massive education campaign about what they say are the sky-high research and development costs involved with bringing them to market.
And WHO do you think is picking up the tab, even if "it's never been easy to turn a profit in biotech," 'murka? And remember, they are charging an arm and a leg adfter development!
To help carry the message, they are paying well-connected lobbying firms, sponsoring radio ads as well as academic studies, and contributing to the campaign coffers of influential lawmakers.
I really do feel sick because I'm ready to puke.
“You get one crack at it,’’ said Robert Coughlin, president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, speaking of the task of drawing up a licensing system for “biogenerics.’’ “If it isn’t done right, it could literally put the biotech industry out of business.’’
Yeah, right! Nice thought, but.... booga, booga, booga!
The quest for influence is not always obvious. Howard Dean, the former Democratic Party chairman, wrote an opinion piece this month in The Hill, an influential Capitol Hill newspaper, arguing that fewer than 12 years of monopoly rights for biotech companies’ products “would prematurely rob innovators of their intellectual property and . . . destroy incentives to develop new cures.’’
Within hours Joe Trippi, a Democratic consultant who ran Dean’s 2004 presidential race, hyped Dean’s opinion piece in a blog post that he sent to The Huffington Post, a widely read website. “He’s a doctor and lifelong advocate for health reform - he knows what he’s talking about,’’ Trippi wrote, urging readers to contact their lawmakers.
Dean failed to note in his editorial that he is an adviser to McKenna, Long & Aldridge, a global law firm that is advising the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the influential trade group. Nor did Trippi mention that his public relations firm handles social media projects in a partnership with the Boston public relations company Brodeur Partners, which also has BIO as a client.
Yup, the GREAT LIBERALS of the DemocraP party!
NOT a SINGLE-PAYER ADVOCATE among 'em -- and NOW WE KNOW WHY!!!
After the Globe inquired about those ties, both Dean and Trippi said they only advocate for causes they genuinely support, but said they should have disclosed those relationships and would do so in the future.
Oh, the SMUG, SELF-RIGHTEOUS LIB-ER-ALS were HIDING their INDUSTRY TIES, 'eh? Oh, puke!
Trippi, who suffers from serious complications of diabetes, noted that he has advocated for biotech for years. But Dean said his editorial was part of McKenna’s rapid-fire response to an unexpected, eleventh-hour Senate health committee proposal (which biotech firms ultimately fought off).
So DEAN ADMITS he's a SHILL for BIOTECH, and yet there is NARY a PEEP of OUTRAGE?
For years, the Food and Drug Administration has debated ways to license lower-cost copies of biotech drugs, a move that would slow the acceleration of drug costs and contribute to healthcare savings across the country. But the biotech industry is relatively new, and its drugs are far more complex and difficult to produce than traditional pharmaceuticals, complicating the process. With President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress intent on reforming healthcare this year, momentum has built to set up a regulatory pathway for “biogenerics.’’
The big question for Congress is how long companies should get exclusive rights to their products before the generics can move in and compete. While industry argues it needs a long monopoly period to recover its research and development costs, the generic-drug industry, labor groups, employers, and the powerful AARP say the system needs cheaper alternatives quickly.
The legions of lobbyists, strategists, and legal consultants involved include former senior aides to key lawmakers and executives. Top biotech companies are clients of Foley Hoag, a law firm with offices in Boston and Washington, which has deployed Nick Littlefield, former staff director and chief counsel for Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s health committee, and Paul Kim, the former deputy health counsel to the Kennedy’s committee.
(Blog editor just tossed up his hands in frustration)
On the other side, the AARP, representing America’s elderly, spent more than $4 million on lobbying in the first quarter and also ran radio ads. Chris Jennings, a former senior health policy adviser to former president Bill Clinton, is advising drug benefits managers, which also favor lower costs.
It doesn't matter which side you turn to. And note the $4mil going up against $126mil -- and the Globe making it sound like its equal. Of course, its all a s*** fooley for 'murkn feasting anyway.
Biotech won a major battle last week when Kennedy’s Senate health committee gave biotech firms the 12-year protections they wanted, plus six months for pediatric versions. The committee rejected a proposal by Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, for a much shorter monopoly period. After the vote, generics companies said they wouldn’t even bother trying to make generic biologics because the 12-year protection would make the enterprise unprofitable.
“The pharmaceutical industry, especially the biotech industry has an awful lot of power in the halls of Congress,’’ Brown told reporters. The battle now moves to the House.
And even more in the statehouse of Massachushitts!
The debate does not break down along the usual partisan lines. Biotech is seen as the economic future in Massachusetts, California, and other blue states, creating high-paying jobs and supporting desirable industries like higher education and medicine.
Such a lie -- as it drains our tax treasury.
State leaders from around the country, including Governor Deval Patrick, wrote letters to their delegations supporting a biotech-friendly bill.
Oh, I'll bet he did! HE BORROWED a BILLION DOLLARS (with interest, meaning it will cost us another $800,000) to GIVE AWAY to them here!
CEOs have flown to Washington to drive their points home.
What was the CARBON FOOTPRINT on those, HANH?!!!!!!!!!
The Globe reported earlier this year that
Pffft!
“For nearly 50 years, Senator Kennedy has been fighting to provide all Americans, regardless of race, gender, or income, with access to quality, affordable healthcare,’’ Kennedy’s spokesman said in a statement.
Then HE HAS FAILED! 50 years and NO RESULTS?
“Every decision he makes on health policy is designed to further that important national goal.’’
I used to believe that; not anymore.
How come we can't all just get his healthcare? After all, taxpayers pay for it.
In the health committee vote last week, a number of other left-leaning Democratic senators sided with the industry, including Patty Murray of Washington, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and Kay Hagan of North Carolina. Kennedy supported the measure by proxy.
What more is there really left so say, except this: Meet Your Antiwar New England Liberals
Hagan, a freshman senator whose state is home to a biotech sector, was assigned to the health committee this winter. Few were surprised when she cosponsored the industry-friendly amendment. But biotech firms were not taking chances: In the first half of this year, they poured $16,000 into her campaign account.
What it comes down to is the AmeriKan system of governmnet is now nothing but one big looting and kickback operation disguised as economic investment and "campaign contributions."
Hagan believes the protections are necessary to support research for new drugs. “Without the 12-year protection, these jobs could be shifted overseas,’’ Hagan said in a statement to the Globe.
Well, WHERE YOU BEEN?! They been GOING OVERSEAS for 30 YEARS!!!!!
I'm so sick of globalist crappers whipping the lost jobs bit to fund their masters! It's insulting.
--more--"
Doctor's Note
Health Bill Loaded With Pork
Obama's SicKo Sequel
No Choice But Single Payer
No Need For Single-Payer
Healthcare Hustle
The Hidden Costs of Healthcare
