“This was an unexpected victory in a long fight against an illegal cartel of three corporations who have raised their insulin prices in lockstep.”

The Biden Administration pleasantly stunned health care reform advocates Tuesday by including short-acting insulin in its list of 10 drugs for which Medicare will negotiate lower prices, power vested in the White House by the Inflation Reduction Act.

The IRA was passed in the face of one of the heftiest barrages of lobbying in congressional history, with the pharmaceutical industry spending more than $700 million over 2021 and 2022 — several times more than the second- and third-ranking industries — much of it aimed at stopping the legislation, watering it down, or undermining its implementation.

  • SteveJobs@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    The pharmaceutical industry spent $700 million lobbying against this? What a bunch of assholes.

    • MicroWave@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      And they’ve already filed lawsuits:

      The suits make similar and overlapping claims that Medicare negotiations are unconstitutional.

      The companies argue that the talks would force drugmakers to sell their medicines at huge discounts, below market rates. They assert this violates the Fifth Amendment, which requires the government to pay reasonable compensation for private property taken for public use.

      The suits also argue that the process violates drugmakers’ free speech rights under the First Amendment, essentially forcing companies to agree that Medicare is negotiating a fair price.

      They also contend that the talks violate the Eighth Amendment by levying an excessive fine if drugmakers refuse to engage in the process.

      Just ridiculous.

      https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/29/10-drugs-to-face-medicare-price-negotiations-see-the-list.html

      • Ertebolle@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        A great way to tell that a business is making way too much money is when they can afford to hire monkey cages full of lawyers to fling every terrible legal argument they can think of at you in the hope that one of them somehow sticks.

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        And yet in every other country where they have to bargain against a centralized healthcare system, they are able to provide a decent price.

        The US needs to take decisive action against these sociopaths.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        The companies argue that the talks would force drugmakers to sell their medicines at huge discounts, below market rates. They assert this violates the Fifth Amendment, which requires the government to pay reasonable compensation for private property taken for public use.

        It will be interesting to watch this shake out, because this decision could have a lot of knock-off effects when it comes to further price negotiations by the government across a wide array of sectors.

      • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        At this point the first amendment is just their catchall for any time they want to stop the government doing something, isnt it? Selling drugs isnt speech, making cakes or websites isn’t speech, you fucking monsters don’t have to like it and you don’t have to pretend to like it, you just have to stop destroying people for money.

    • lemme_at_it@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      " Wealthy residents raise $60,000 to stop homeless shelter being built in San Francisco", was a headline last week.

      It’s not just an 'industry" thing. It’s a "people"thing