By Stephen P. Pizzo
http://www.stephen.pizzo.com
Unaffordable Life-Saving Drugs:
How about creating an"eminent domain." doctrine for life-saving drugs?
It's an idea that's time has come, and
for many of the very same reasons that eminent domain laws were
passed to allow local and state governments to force the sale of a
piece of property needed for important public purposes.
Over the past decade life-saving drugs
have been priced out of the reach of many who desperately need them.
The more life-threatening the disease, the higher the drug is priced
– a sick twist on the old gag, “Your money or life?”
I could launch into a Sanders-like
diatribe about the excesses of free markets and capitalism but, in
this case, there's a simple solution, one that can satisfy all sides.
First let's understand an important,
and little mentioned, fact about the R&D end of the
pharmaceutical business. Drug companies like to complain that they
have to spend millions do develop groundbreaking drugs. What they
fail to mention is that, even before they get their hands on those
formulas, US taxpayers have already dumped tens of millions into
their development.
“A new report
shows taxpayers often foot the bill to help develop new drugs, but
it's private companies that reap the lion's share of profits. In one
case, the federal government spent $484 million developing the cancer
drug Taxol — derived from the bark of Pacific yew trees — and it
was marketed under an agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb starting in
1993. The medical community called it a promising new drug in the
fight against ovarian and breast cancer.
Since then,
Bristol-Myers Squibb has sold $9 billion worth of Taxol worldwide,
according the the General Accounting Office report released today.
The National Institutes of Health have received just $35 million in
royalties from Bristol-Myers, however.
The Medicare
program alone paid nearly $700 million over a five-year period, to
buy a drug the government helped develop.” (Source)
So the government usually has a lot of
skin in the game long before drug companies start to test and market
a new drug, something they don't like to talk about. Some of that
government funding even goes directly to pharmaceutical company-run
laboratories.
Okay, so to the solution;
pharmaceutical eminent domain:
Any life-saving drug that is put on the
market at a price an independent medical panel deems largely beyond
the reach of average patients, would be sent to an arbitration board
that would set a fair market price for the purchase by the US
Government of that drugs patent(s).
Pharmaceutical companies would be paid
a fair price, a price high enough for the patent that it would
continue to encourage drug companies development of new drugs.
This would create an entirely new
calculation for drug companies. Rather than pricing new life-saving
drugs a the highest possible price, they would have to calculate what
they could earn selling the patent to the US Government against what
they could earn over the years if they priced the drug below the
level that would trigger an imminent domain action against that
particular drug.
Drugs that become the property of the
government through this imminent domain process would be administered
and marketed by Medicare, priced on a sliding scale of a patient's
ability to pay. (We are, after all, talking about life-saving
drugs here.)
Without an pharmaceutica eminent domain option hanging over drug companies, they will always go for
the gold when pricing new, life-saving, drugs because, what do they
have to lose? Nothing.
What do you have to lose? Your life.
Iraq and Afghanistan
Even though most US troops have been
withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan, there are still many there and,
if some folks in DC have their way, more will follow in the months
and years ahead. This is a continuation of what seems to be a
shockingly flat learning curve.
There really are not great arguments
for remaining militarily engaged in any part of that terminally
dysfunctional region. But, when confronted with the many good
arguments against such ongoing engagements, proponents of engagement
drag out their last weapon: the guilt-trip.
They say that, maybe it was our
invasion of Iraq that unleashed this spiral of never-ending violence.
And even if it wasn't, the fighting that followed our invasions
killed and injured hundreds of thousands of civilians and destroyed
what little public and private infrastructure they had. So we can't
just pack up and leave now. We need to help them put their Humpty
Dumpty back together again.
To which I say, hogwash.
True, citizens of both Iraq and
Afghanistan have suffered terribly from the events kicked off by
George W. and his sidekick, Dick. But we too have paid a price for it
all, and will continue paying it for decades to come. Already the
cost of those two wars have been estimated on th low end at at least
$2 trillion and, when costs of veteran care and other ongoing
costs, it could top $4 trillion – money that could have, and
should have, gone to fill very real and growing public and
humanitarian needs here at home.
On top of that, over 6,800 US service
members and over 6,900 contractors have died in the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. And an unusually high percentage of young veterans have
died since returning home, many as a result of drug overdoses,
vehicle crashes, or suicide.
So, as the song goes, “You gotta
know when to hold-em, and know when to fold-em.” And it high
time to fold-em...both of them, Afghanistan and Iraq. And throw Syria
into that mix as well, since there seems to be a growing itch to jump
into that Middle East tarpit as well.
As long as the combatants and
politicians in those troubled countries think they can sucker the US
into sending money, arms and troops to play their sectarian games,
they have no incentive whatsoever to seek other solutions. (I
shudder to think how many Swiss bank accounts are brimming over with
US aide money, but I would wager it would reach well into the
hundreds of billions of dollars. Wanna bet?)
So, out now. All the way out.
And then stay out. Everyone has paid a terrible price for this “bring
democracy to the Middle East” folly. Time to call and end to it and
let them figure out exactly what is they want, and are willing to
live with.
Israel & Palestine
Here's another bit on never-ending
trouble we need to clean our skirts of once and for all. If you're
looking for either pure victims or pure heroes, look elsewhere, you
won't find ANY here.
On one side we have a bunch of largely
Europeans, packing 5000 year-old Biblical title reports that show
they once owned the entire area from the sea to the borders of Jordan
and Syria. And they are now here to reclaim it..all of it.
On the other side are the
Palestinians... a group that, as it has been said, and proven many
times, “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
Time and again, when some kind of agreement appeared at hand, the
Palestinians' leadership (a term I use loosely) sabotaged the deals.
Here again we see American
interventions produce more, not less trouble. (“Hi, I'm from
America, and I'm here to help.” Run!) And,
like the wars we just discussed, our involvement with this
never-ending pissing match has cost us dearly.
U.S. military aid to Israel was $2.775
billion in 2010, $3 billion in 2011, $3.07 billion in 2012
(and $3.15 billion per year from 2013-2018.) Washington also
provides aid to Palestine totaling, on average, $875 million
annually. (Imagine what that money could pay for here at home.
And you will have to imagine that, since it didn't provide squat here
at home.)
The Israel lobby
wheels out a battery of arguments in favor of arming and funding
Israel, including the assertion that a step back from such aid for
Israel would signify a "retreat" into "isolationism."
But would the United States, a global hegemon busily engaged in
nearly every aspect world affairs, be "isolated" if it
ceased giving lavish military aid to Israel? Was the United States
"isolated" before 1967 when it expanded that aid in a major
way? These questions answer themselves.
"If it
weren't for US support for Israel, this conflict would have been
resolved a long time ago," says Josh Ruebner.(national advocacy
director for the US Campaign to End the Occupation and author of
Shattered Hopes: Obama’s Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace) (Source)
Israel has become so accustomed to the
US caving to their demands, it now lobbies our Congress directly,
like a de facto US state, encouraging opposition forces in Congress
to reject the policies of a sitting US President. Imagine that. Oh,wait, you don't have to imagine it, do you:
So, the solution agaun is clear:
Walkaway. Stay away.
What would happen, you ask? Well, on
the Palestinian side what would happen is they would realize that no
one was going to come to their rescue the next time they dig their
heels in and refuse to accept anything less than the entire loaf. And
that they themselves will have to rein in their Hamas factions before
those nuts get the entire Palestinian population embroiled in another
bloody war with Israel...which would likely be the last one.
For Israel our total disengagement
would also send a message: Game Over. So, you don't want to
get out of the West Bank? Fine. It's yours. In which case Israel's
ever thinning democratic veneer would be stripped away. Once stuck
with all those Palestinians – who are outbreeding Israelis by a
long shot -- then officially part of Israel, they would have to
decide... do we let them vote? If they do let them vote,
Palestinians will out-vote white Israelis and would like rally much
support form Israeli Arabs as well. Don't let them vote and Israel
would become a full-fledged apartheid regime....and good luck with
that.
By announcing we're out of ideas and
out of patience with both sides, both sides will be tossed hot
potatoes they will have to juggle themselves. Then let self-interests
shape their decisions, unencumbered by hopes some outside force will
charge to their rescue.
