WALL STREET PLUNDERS - BIG PHARMA SUCKS THE BLOOD OUT OF AMERICA - Pharmacy Benefit Managers: The Big Insurance Con That Drives Up Your Drug Prices and Their Profits

OBAMACARE WAS ENTIRELY WRITTEN BY SOCIOPATH GAMER LAWYER BARACK OBAMA'S BIG PHARMA CRONIES!

Although Obamacare was sold as the solution to all of America’s health care woes, the outcomes almost 15 years later have been awful.  

Pharmacy Benefit Managers: The Big Insurance Con That Drives Up Your Drug Prices and Their Profits

139

iStock/Getty Images

AMERICANS FOR LIMITED GOVERNMENT (SPONSORED)

5 Oct 2023120

5:40

The following article by Rick Manning is is sponsored content from Americans for Limited Government.

My doctor speculated that one day the mob would take over the health care business. Illegal drugs, prostitution, gambling rings, and the like only appeal to a small part of the population, but everyone needs to go to the doctor.

I think he was joking at the time … after all, the mob has nothing on the cronies who’ve already taken over health care.

Although Obamacare was sold as the solution to all of America’s health care woes, the outcomes almost 15 years later have been awful. Premiums have become more expensive as health insurance has become a bank-breaking necessity. Benefits have rapidly dwindled, the costs of treatment have increased, options have become more constrained, and the doctor-patient relationship has been indelibly sullied by the billing codes and arcane databases. Obamacare has been proven as the legislative snake oil of the 21st Century.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say outcomes have been awful for us – the patient. Health insurance companies have raked in record profits under the “Affordable” Care Act (ACA).

Much like everything else in our gloomy, globalized era, the fundamental problem has been mass consolidation. The free-market economy doesn’t work when it’s unfree from monopolies, and there’s no greater monopoly than the federal government. When it picks winners – even under the oh-so altruistic banner of health care for all – we all lose.

And under Obamacare, the biggest winner has been the UnitedHealth Group (UNH). In April 2010, right after the ACA was signed, UnitedHealth’s stock price was a paltry $30. It now hovers somewhere below $500.

Apparently when Obama said “at a certain point, you’ve made enough money,” he was not counting corporate insurance beneficiaries of his signature legislation.

Now perhaps that last one is not completely fair. After all, Democrats did try to rein in insurers with the ACA. As has been pointed out in painfully precise detail, they stressed a provision called the medical loss ratio (MLR). The MLR requires companies to spend 80 to 85 percent of premium revenue on actual health care “so executives wouldn’t be able to pad their wallets as much.”

However, as is often the case with government mandates, insurers like UnitedHealth just maneuvered around the letter of the MLR rather than following the spirit of it. See, insurance companies tend to have diversified business interests – including pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), physician-owned practices, payday loans, and so on.

So, while the MLR capped profits for claims reimbursement at the point of service, differently designated treatments serve as a loophole; so, insurance companies can get away with much less than that lofty 80 to 85 percent. In a Freakonomics-style “people respond very strongly to incentives,” the MLR instead created the financial imperative for insurance companies to become even more powerful rather than less.

UnitedHealth has taken point on consolidating the PBM industry when it acquired PacifiCare Health Systems in 2005, which they rebranded as “OptumRx.” Ten years later, UnitedHealth bought Catamaran – the fourth-largest PBM in the U.S. – for just shy of $13 billion.

See PBMs exist ostensibly to serve as a negotiator between pharmaceutical and insurance companies. In theory, that’s a great idea, but not if one of those two parties owns the PBM. It’s like if the mob owns a law firm. The three biggest PBMs are each owned by a large insurer: Caremark is owned by CVS/Aetna, and Express Scripts is owned by Cigna.

Insurance companies use their PBMs to drive up prescription drug prices for patients. A U.S. House Oversight Committee report found that PBMs force drug manufacturers to increase their list price so that PBMs can pad their profits with bigger “rebates.”

Last year, OptumRx made almost $100 billion for UnitedHealth. In the past, we would have called that a conflict of interest. Nowadays it’s called “managed care.”

Adding to the cronyism and complexity, the industry has even recruited AARP as its political bodyguard. UnitedHealth pays AARP close to a billion a year to sell its insurance products to seniors and curry favor with politicians. Our whole byzantine health care system has become so overwhelmingly complicated that it’s no surprise Americans are furious.

Insurance companies and their PBMs have gamed the system, and their profits are up tens of billions. Patients are paying more for prescription drugs. And community pharmacies are closing at record rates.

The deck feels stacked against ordinary Americans. That causes America’s widespread loss of faith in institutions. Maybe it’s because these institutions have become too big for anyone’s good but the few dons at the top. The federal government should not be picking winners and losers; it certainly shouldn’t be creating monopolies who are incentivized to drive up drug prices for patients.

All of this leaves people like me wishing that the health care industry would just be taken over by the mob. At least when they shake someone down, they’re honest about it.

 For more information, visit Americans for Limited Government here.

Robert Califf, Joe Biden’s Nomination To Head The FDA, Is Tied To Big Pharma

By Greg Daniels

The Biden administration has nominated Dr. Robert Califf to head the Food and Drug Administration. Peter J. Pitts, a former FDA Associate Commissioner, had published at the International Business Times an enthusiastic essay about Califf’s nomination because Califf is a proponent of accelerated approval for drugs. However, that one factor, while it can be beneficial, ignores myriad other problems with Califf.

You can read the IBT article here, which focuses on Califf’s approval history. This essay is about all the problems with the rest of Califf’s history.

COVID has revealed that the FDA, the CDC, Fauci, the White House, and “science” are at odds with each other. The FDA desperately needs major reform and transparency surrounding hiring, drug safety, and new drug approvals. As commissioner under Obama, Califf made few or no noteworthy changes to the FDA and shows no signs of improving the record if re-appointed.

Califf arrived at the FDA in 2015 determined to modernize how the agency reviewed drug and device study data, but there is little evidence he achieved that goal:

· When he learned that Obama had proposed him as commissioner, Califf removed his name from scientific articles he had written. Even if they were controversial and assuming they were truthful, he should have stuck by them. America needs an FDA commissioner who will stick to evidence-based science, even in the face of controversy.

· Dr. Califf currently works full-time for Google’s “Alphabet” company (Google being the most evil company in the world, according to Ted Cruz). In 2019, he became head of medical strategy at Google parent company Alphabet Inc.

Dr. Califf in Bed With Big Pharma:

· Dr. Califf has deeper ties to the pharmaceutical industry than any FDA commissioner in recent memory, and he lacks a public health background.

· Dr. Califf founded the Duke Clinical Research Institute, which runs research trials for pharmaceutical companies and today has more than 1,200 employees.

· At Duke, Dr. Califf actively solicited funding from Big Pharma and no record exists of Dr. Califf ever saying “no” to any pharmaceutical company that offered him money. America needs an unbiased, science-based commissioner without these conflicts, and someone who can stand up to Big Pharma and say “no.” Some of the drug companies he accepted money from have FDA violations and questionable or even upsetting behaviors when it comes to their claims and when it comes to their safety /regulatory records.

· Hillary Clinton and the Clinton foundation have been heavily criticized for doing the same thing. She solicited significant donations as Secretary of State from anyone and everyone. Some of the countries from which Hillary Clinton accepted donations have appalling human rights records and even ties to terrorism. The Republicans threw a fit about Clinton but they didn’t seem to care about the appointment of Califf the first time around and haven’t yet raised these issues since his second appointment was proposed.

· Bernie Sanders is opposed to Califf’s appointment because of his Big Pharma ties.

· More than half (~63%) of Califf’s $320 million funding at Duke came from Big Pharma and has had decades-long ties to almost every big pharma company.

· He has served as a paid consultant with (1) Merck Sharp & Dohme, (2) Johnson & Johnson, (3) GlaxoSmithKline, (4) AstraZeneca, (5) Eli Lilly (6) Amgen, (7) F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, (8) Janssen Pharmaceutica, (9) Daiichi Sankyo, (10) Sanofi-Aventis, (11) Bristol-Myers Squibb, (12) Proventys, Inc, (13) Regado Biosciences, Inc, and (14) Corgentech Inc. (15) Genentech

· Forbes wrote that his close ties to the drug industry were the reason for him not being nominated for the FDA Commissioner position in 2009.

· Due to Califf’s big pharma conflicts, he would be unable to serve on an FDA advisory committee, yet democrats are proposing Calif for a third tour of duty at the FDA, where he previously served as the deputy commissioner and then the commissioner.

 

Image: Robert Califf (cropped). Public domain.

 

Califf and the Opioid Epidemic—Bipartisan Disapproval

· Given the pressing need for a permanent commissioner, Califf is expected to again win confirmation. This is despite the fact that he has presided over highly questionable approvals at the FDA (including high-dose highly addictive hydrocodone preparations, Oxycodone use in children as low as 11, and female sexual dysfunction drug Addyi among several others). On every single one of these FDA approvals, the FDA decided to override its own advisory committee of experts, yet Califf still gave his approval.

· Joe Manchin has repeatedly stated that he would refuse to support Janet Woodcock’s appointment as FDA commissioner because of her inaction of the opioid epidemic. Under Woodcock, the FDA allowed Purdue to claim on Oxycontin’s insert that its delayed absorption was “believed to reduce the abuse liability.” The drug’s label declared that addiction “is rare.” That freed Purdue’s marketing team to push their drug as much safer than any opioid competitor. While OxyContin’s maker Purdue hadn’t performed clinical trials to prove that the drug was less addictive than other opioids, the FDA allowed the drug to carry a label that said addiction ‘is rare.’ Califf permitted the use of OxyContin in little kids as young as 11 years old.

· Moderate West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin called Biden’s choice of Califf an “insult to the many families and individuals who have had their lives changed forever as a result of addiction.”

· Califf was a cheerleader for Vioxx, which was reported to have caused 50,000 heart attacks.

· It has been reported by Freedommag.org that “while at Duke, the research operations over which Dr. Califf presided resulted in major fraud.”

Ineffectual assistance to terminally ill patients:

· Right-to-Try legislation exploded under Califf’s last FDA appointment because terminally ill American patients could not obtain access to potentially life-saving drugs that they needed. Right-to-Try now exists in 41 states.

Today’s FDA is not the same FDA of 20 or even 10 years ago. The FDA has become a lot more political and has made some highly questionable approvals and safety decisions in the very recent past which include, but are not limited to, vaccine/booster approvals. The FDA and CDC regularly ignore their own independent expert panels’ advice which they solicit and that includes, but is not limited to, decisions related to Covid-19 vaccines and boosters.

While Califf has put out voluminous amounts of research, he has a list of conflicts dozens of pages long. He clearly knows a lot about drug development and drug research but there are other individuals who are equally or more qualified than he is out there who don’t have Califf’s conflicts and baggage.

It is even further evidence of Joe Biden’s presidency being nothing more than an Obama 3rd term.

 

Despite his Wall Street, big business, Big Tech, and billionaire donations, Biden has attempted to portray himself as a small-town fighter from Scranton, Pennsylvania

 

The Biden Administration’s Strange, Secret Effort to Bail Out Moderna

President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland / Getty Images

Chuck Ross

March 21, 2023

American taxpayers have already given Moderna $10 billion for its coronavirus vaccine. If the Biden administration gets its wish, that tab could soon grow.

In a court filing last month, Department of Justice lawyers offered to "relieve" Moderna of any liability it faces from a lawsuit that accuses the drug company of failing to pay licensing fees for technology it used to develop its vaccine during "Operation Warp Speed." Moderna has argued that the federal government should be on the hook for any legal settlement because of a stipulation in its contract that protects the company from patent litigation. The government had stayed silent on the matter until last month, when Justice Department lawyers said that any liability that Moderna faces should "transfer" to the United States government, citing a World War I-era law that protects federal contractors from patent disputes.

While the judge handling the case recently denied the request, Moderna and the federal government could appeal the decision and put taxpayers on the hook for any legal payout. Genevant, one of the companies that sued Moderna, has already accused the drug maker of "trying to shift responsibility for its patent infringement to the U.S. taxpayer."

The government’s offer to bail out Moderna will likely not sit well with the American public or with senators when they grill Moderna’s CEO at a hearing on Wednesday. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee invited Stéphane Bancel to testify about the company’s plans to quadruple the price of its coronavirus vaccine. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) called Moderna the "poster child" for pharmaceutical industry greed. He criticized Moderna for the proposed price hike after the company relied on taxpayer support to develop and manufacture the vaccine.

The vaccine was a godsend for Moderna, which had not marketed a drug in its 10-year history. The company’s revenues went from less than $800 million in 2020 to $19 billion last year. That would add to the nearly $10 billion that the government has paid Moderna during the pandemic. The Pentagon awarded an $8.2 billion contract to Moderna, and the Department of Health and Human Services paid the company another $1.7 billion. Moderna booked net income of $12.2 billion in 2021 after reporting a loss of $747 million in 2020.

That has made Bancel a multi-billionaire, as Moderna’s stock price has surged from around $20 at the beginning of the pandemic to roughly $150 today. It peaked at a high of $450 in September 2021. Bancel sold $408 million worth of Moderna shares between the start of the pandemic and March 2022.

It is unclear whether Moderna and the Department of Justice will appeal the recent decision. Moderna did not respond to a request for comment. A Justice Department spokesman said the agency "doesn’t have anything else to add."

Published under: Coronavirus , Department of Justice , Merrick Garland , Vaccines