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by genzoman 2595 days ago
Big Pharma knows no party.
4 comments

Nah, this is dumb. There's a clear distinction between parties in terms of how they feel about the current healthcare system and where it should go. To imply they're the same is utter nonsense.
Big Pharma knows both parties. They own them both, they really don't care much who wins. Welcome to life in a plutocracy.
Then why are only Democrats pushing for Medicare For All and other comprehensive public health plans while Republicans want to dismantle the ACA (Obamacare)?
A subset of Democratic politicians and officials are pushing for Medicare for All. Most of the Democratic party machine is tepid-to-opposed.
There are more than zero Democrats working on the problem. There are zero Republicans working on the problem.
Big Pharma is the only party who wins under a universal healthcare system or private insurance based system.

It’s not like ACA or even Medicare covers all Rx...hence Medicare Part D (ie drug coverage) which was done under GW Bush, at the time the GOP distanced themselves and later Obama tried to dismantle Medicare part D, but the dems has to pull him back (politically dems couldn’t gut drug coverage for Medicare patients).

Medicare for all would do nothing to harm Big Pharma as the government is not legally allowed to use its monopsony status to negotiate prices under Medicare Part D (the section of Medicare that accounts for 85% of government drug spending). If anything, it would be a boon to Big Pharma as it removes barriers to access for an enormous number of new "customers". Interestingly, it was the Trump administration [1] who made the first move to allow the government to negotiate drug prices by loosening the restrictions against such practices for Medicare Part B spending (which represents 15% of government drug spending). I'm not saying the American right wing's approach is in any way comparable to the left's, I'm just saying that the left's approach suspiciously overlooks any solutions that might actually threaten Big Pharma.

[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-07/trump-for...

The M4A bills that are working their way through Congress right now all remove that restriction.
Like the banks. They own both parties.