Stephan: American pharmaceutical prices have no relation with the prices to be found in the rest of the world's nations. American drugs according to the Rand Corporation are 2.56 times more expensive than other developed nations. When I talk about Congressional corruption, be it Republican or Democratic -- this story is about the bizarre Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat -- this is what I am talking about. It also makes clear how the pharmaceutical industry part of the American illness profit system operates.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) Credit: Kevin Dietsch/Getty
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the controversial Arizona Democrat who threatens to derail President Biden’s legislative agenda, received more than $750,000 in donations from the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. After that, she announced her opposition to a Democratic plan to lower prescription drug costs.
Sinema told White House officials that she opposes House and Senate bills that would allow Medicare to negotiate drug costs, sources told Politico this week. Democrats estimate these bills would save $450 billion over the next decade and thereby pay for a large portion of President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending plan. The budget bill would expand child care, health care and paid family leave and would fund programs to combat climate change, among other measures. Three House Democrats have also balked at the plan, although they have offered a “centrist” alternative that would drastically limit which drugs are subject to Medicare negotiation. Sinema reportedly opposes that proposal as well. During her successful 2018 Senate campaign, Sinema repeatedlyvowed to lower prescription drug prices and drug costs for seniors.
Sinema is a longtime favorite of the pharmaceutical industry and now appears ready to […]
Andrew Mulcahy, Senior Policy Researcher - Rand Corporation
Stephan: The American illness profit system is so blatantly rigged so that wellbeing is not the first priority, profit is. And nowhere is this clearer than in American drug prices compared to the rest of the developed world. Here are the real facts. So when a member of Congress, sworn to put the wellbeing of their constituents first, votes against lowering drug prices they might has well have a sign on their head saying, "I'm for sale."
Linking the cost of prescription drugs in the United States to the prices paid in other high-income nations could have reduced American spending for the drugs by at least half in 2020, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
Modeling a proposal that would cap U.S. prices at 120% of what is paid in six other nations, researchers found that such a move would have cut U.S. spending on insulins and 50 top brand-name drugs by 52% during 2020—a savings of $83.5 billion. These savings are on top of already-lower U.S. “net” prices after rebates negotiated between drug companies and insurers.
The findings are published in the latest edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“International reference pricing could yield considerable savings in the United States,” said Andrew Mulcahy, lead author of the study and a senior health policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. “While our analysis does not consider all issues that might be involved in adopting reference pricing, it does demonstrate the magnitude of the savings that might be achieved.”
High prescription drug prices have important implications […]
Stephan: Here is some excellent good news from the office of Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, one of the best American governors, which is why some MAGAts tried to kill her. Michigan is going to build a highway outfitted to wirelessly charge EVs. This is the obvious solution to what do you do to improve EV range, and SR has been following this trend from the very beginning (See SR archives). I even wrote up what I thought it would come to in my novel, Awakening.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer at the Motor Bella auto show, September 21, 2021. Credit: The Office of Governor Gretchen Whitmer
“Michigan was home to the first mile of paved road, and now we’re paving the way for the roads of tomorrow with innovative infrastructure that will support the economy and the environment, helping us achieve our goal of carbon neutrality by 2050,” Whitmer said in a statement.
Michigan is planning to build the first public road in the United States where electric vehicles can charge wirelessly while driving, Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced Tuesday at the Motor Bella auto show in Pontiac.
Next week, the state Department of Transportation will issue a formal request for proposals to design, test, and implement wireless charging infrastructure on one mile of road in Wayne, Oakland, or Macomb counties. It’s not yet clear how the Inductive Vehicle Charging Pilot would operate or when it would be unveiled.
A research project in Indiana will use magnetizable concrete to allow wireless charging on a quarter-mile stretch of private road. Coils embedded in the road will convey electricity to cars outfitted with coils […]
Stephan: Today's SR is dedicated to one of the biggest trends I see in America, the politicization of the Covid pandemic. Today I focus on the effect this is having on the American illness profit system when hospital care without consideration of profit has become the reality. More than 2,000 people a day are dying of Covid. At this point 95% of them are unvaccinated, and a majority are Republicans. Those are facts. One can disregard them, but that doesn't make them any less correct. If you are unvaccinated, for whatever reason, you are part of a death cult, whether you admit that or not. By your choice you are more likely to die than individuals who are vaccinated.
Stephan: I did a story on the Idaho hospital crisis 10 days ago or so when their hospital system went into crisis. It still goes on, and people from the western side of Idaho, are now pouring over into Eastern Washington over-stressing hospitals in my state. Even though Washington has a good vaccinated rate Governor Inslee has had to ask for Federal aid because of the flood of people from Idaho. All of this, of course, is completely the result of the anti-vaxxers facing the consequences of their failure to protect themselves.
Ann Enderle R.N. checks on a COVID-19 patient in the Medical Intensive care unit (MICU) at St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center in Boise, Idaho. Idaho public health leaders have activated “crisis standards of care” for the state’s northern hospitals because there are more coronavirus patients than the institutions can handle. Credit: Kyle Green/AP
BOISE, IDAHO — public health leaders announced Tuesday that they activated “crisis standards of care” allowing health care rationing for the state’s northern hospitals because there are more coronavirus patients than the institutions can handle.
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare quietly enacted the move Monday and publicly announced it in a statement Tuesday morning — warning residents that they may not get the care they would normally expect if they need to be hospitalized.
The move came as the state’s confirmed coronavirus cases skyrocketed in recent weeks. Idaho has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the U.S.
The state health agency cited “a severe shortage of staffing and available beds in the northern area of the state caused by a massive increase in patients with COVID-19 who […]
