Friends, my latest article beats a familiar drum: I encourage New York's two Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to reject efforts to persecute and overregulate PBMs, i.e. "pharmacy benefit managers".
Behold:
Dancing to the Lobbyists' Tune Won't
Lower Prescription Drug Costs
Chuck Schumer's
heart is in the right place: he wants to lower health care and
prescription drug costs for New Yorkers and for Americans, and he's
calling on his fellow Senators, like our own Kirsten Gillibrand, to
pass a major health care reform bill this year. We could certainly
use one. The question is: what kind of reforms do we need?
Unfortunately,
all too often regulators and Congresspeople fall for the “solutions”
proposed by lobbyists and favored by major campaign contributors.
And, all too often, these “solutions” backfire, increasing
federal spending, health insurance rates, and out-of-pocket costs for
ordinary citizens.
With
the so-called PBM
Transparency Act,
it sure looks like many Senators are in danger of falling into this
same old trap, even if they don't realize it. On the advice of
players in the marketplace that have every interest in raising
drug prices, they're
proposing to crack down on a pillar of the health care industry –
PBMs, or “pharmacy benefit managers” – that are already doing
exactly what they're designed to do: exert downward pressure on drug
prices and save Americans billions
of dollars
every year. Obviously, the lobbyists are having none of that!
Everyone
agrees on the scale of the problem. Here in New York we pay
more
for health care than the residents of any other state (about $14,000
per year in 2020), just like we pay more in taxes, and invest more in
our public schools. Seldom, however, do we get a return on these
“investments” that justifies their vast expense.
New
Yorkers, like Americans across this country, pay vastly more for the
same prescription drugs than do patients worldwide. The truth,
however, is that this problem could be worse. It will be worse, if we
keep listening to the same lobbyists and special interests who got us
into this mess in the first place. It will also be worse if we crack
the whip against PBMs, which negotiate with pharmaceutical
wholesalers to lower
drug prices. PBMs reduce
Medicare's outlays
for prescriptions by 20%, and, by one measure, they save each and
every American about $1,000
per year.
Few little-known companies can make that claim!
No
wonder, therefore, that the three corporations that dominate the drug
wholesaling business – McKesson, Cardinal, and
AmeriSourceBergen – would like to put these pesky PBMs in their
place. And no wonder that the pharmaceutical and “health products”
industry as a whole, which just reaped a record windfall from the
COVID pandemic, is spending record amounts, $374
million in 2022 alone, on lobbying, with the
goal of further padding their profits. That makes drug companies the
top sponsors of political lobbying efforts, and by a country mile,
too.
What's more, the benevolence of
corporations like McKesson, Cardinal, and AmeriSourceBergen cannot
simply be assumed. McKesson recently agreed to a $141
million settlement with its own shareholders
over concealing the benefits it reaped from an illegal price-fixing
scheme. In March, a unit of McKesson announced 800
layoffs, despite the company's robust
sales and profitability.
Cardinal Health recently inked a $557
million deal to sell part of its Chinese
operations to government-owned “Shanghai Pharma” –
demonstrating an impressive capacity to monetize drug use under both
capitalist and Marxist-Leninist conditions.
AmeriSourceBergen is the biggest of
the three companies. It recently agreed to pay
$6 billion to settle a case brought by the
Department of Justice involving the careless distribution of opioids
(a similar
settlement was agreed with New York State in
2021), but it faces additional
legal challenges on the opioid front. It also
recently laid
off 450 people, despite enjoying almost $1.7
billion in net income in 2022. Either to shore up its tarnished
reputation, or to remove the sting of its association with a place as
provincial as “America” (the company aims to boost its global
reach), AmeriSourceBergen will soon rename
itself “Cencora”.
If, therefore, the Senate wants only
to scratch the backs of corporate megadonors and insider
lobbyists, then by all means it should pass the “PBM Transparency
Act” expeditiously. If, on the other hand, like our Senators
Schumer and Gillibrand they want to improve our health care system
and lower costs, they should tap the brakes. Punishing the few forces
at work in American health care that exist only to
control costs is not the answer.
Dr.
Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred
and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com.
He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.
And here it is at the Olean Times-Herald:
https://www.oleantimesherald.com/opinion/dancing-to-lobbyists-tune-wont-lower-rx-drug-costs/article_42ec9c15-76a2-5019-a40f-2f5380ab4033.html
***
In other news, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina is about ready to declare his candidancy for the Republican nomination for president. Is he really running for president, or for vice-president? Your guess is as good as mine, but I suppose, if DJT ends up in the Big House, virtually anything could happen in 2024, right?
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/05/19/sen_tim_scott_set_to_announce_presidential_campaign.html
Fox News may or may not right the ship after the Dominion/Tucker Carlson debacle, but for now they seem to be firing people left and right. That hardly seems like a good sign, does it?
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2023/05/19/report-fox-news-layoff-entire-investigative-unit-787-5-million-dominion-settlement/
This is the second article I've seen about "No Labels" and its desire to run a third-party candidate for president. This is the first I've seen about speculation that Joe Manchin could be that candidate. I like the idea! There's no quicker, easier way to elect Trump, and to send Biden into retirement, than by dividing the anti-Trump vote.
https://www.breitbart.com/2024-election/2023/05/19/report-no-labels-looking-at-third-party-run-in-2024-with-joe-manchin/
Houghton University, a local Christian college, is in hot water because it fired two employees who refused to delete their preferred pronouns from their email signatures...although it is by no means clear that that was the only reason for their dismissal. Bottom line: the culture wars are impacting Christian colleges and universities no less than they are secular institutions of higher learning. What's more, wokeness is imperiling Christianity just as it is every other facet of Western Civilization.
https://www.newsmax.com/us/houghton-university-new-york/2023/05/19/id/1120554/
Finally, this is a very interesting article about Japan's internal dialogue about whether or not it should become more of a military power. Japan increasingly believes that it requires robust means of self-defense, if it's to deter Chinese aggression, and it may even require offensive capabilities, if it's to come to the defense of regional allies like Taiwan and South Korea. My take: Japan can build up its forces all it likes, but only nuclear weapons can guarantee Japan's security. I know the Japanese have a well-founded aversion to nukes, but they do have their uses...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65643346
