June 23, 2009
Obama Sells Big Pharma-Corporate State Ripoff
Posted by Karen De Coster on June 23, 2009 07:52 AM |
Is there something
wrong with this headline on Bloomberg News today? “
Obama Gets Drug-Industry Booster With Pledge That Keeps Elderly Medicated.” Here are a few snippets:
The pharmaceutical industry pledge includes $30 billion “that could be used” to provide discounts for medicines, said Reid H. Cherlin, a White House spokesman. That will help narrow a gap in Medicare drug coverage known as the doughnut hole. The allowances will encourage patients to remain on expensive brand- name medicines even when cheaper generic copies are available, Tim Anderson, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York, said in a note to clients yesterday.
“Filling the doughnut hole should help seniors stay on their branded therapies and lessen the tendency for seniors to switch from brands to generics once they hit the donut hole,” Anderson said. “This is critical because once patients convert to generics, they seldom revert back to the brand and are essentially lost to cheaper generics forever.”
This entire deal is nothing more than corporate state-special interest politicking on the part of Big Pharma, Big Government, and enriched special interests, with all players openly admitting their very specific goals. As the article clearly states, Big Pharma is willing to cut slightly into its profit margins in exchange for turning people - especially the elderly - into lifetime customers. Perpetual drug zombies buying their patent-protected, overpriced drugs. Another part of the deal is that government has promised it will “inoculate” Big Pharma from proposed regulations that would cost it some more dough.
And yet, this scam is being sold by Obama & Friends as beneficial to the American middle class. It’s nothing more than another corporate state crime of rob-and-redistribution. Wealth will be redistributed from the wage-earning middle class to the welfare state poor and the corporate state rich, all in plain view and plain language, for all to bear witness.