Our math challenged president just might be a Bernie bro
Donald Trump is not just a RINO, he might be a socialist. What! Well Trump just came out of the socialist closet. Not a Bernie Sanders socialist but an American socialist. I wrote in the Knoxville Focus (knoxfocus.com) on September 23, 2023 about the American brand of socialism. “In American Socialism, the means of production remain in private hands. The government determines winners and losers through subsidization and taxation. Since the means of production are still in private hands, American socialism requires a partnership between big government and big business, big media, big tech, big pharma and big retail. American Socialism manifested itself under Trump’s reaction to COVID. The first panicked response was to lock down the economy except for big business. Over 600,000 small businesses failed for no reason other than the government deemed them nonessential. Big businesses stayed open and had fewer competitors.”
Now Trump had abandoned free trade. He is anti-market and pro big business. No self respecting republican would erect trade barriers and start threatening the economic viability of our trading partners. And now he is trying to tell big pharna to lower their prices by 1,500 percent. I am not joking. Trump says that they must reduce their prices within the next 60 days. What? A republican sounding like Bernie Sanders? Did we elect Bernie president? Here is what Trump says “This is something that nobody else can do. We’re gonna get the drug prices down. Not 30 or 40% which would be great, not 50 or 60, no. We’re gonna get ‘em down 1,000%, 600%, 500%, 1,500%.” Well he was right about that one, this is something that nobody else can do, not even Trump. Some wags called his math befuddling. That is kind. He then doubled down saying “We will have reduced drug prices by 1,100, 1,200, 1,300, 1,400, 700, 600; not 30 or 40 or 50% but numbers the likes of which you’ve never even dreamed of before.” Hey, I thought the new math was only taught in today’s elementary schools. Remember 2 plus 2 is whatever little Johnnie wants it to be because we do not want to damage his self esteem. Karoline Levitt, his press secretary, reported this with a straight face. Maybe she has kids trying to learn math. Personally, I think she is as bad as Karine Jean-Pierre. Bring back Tony Snow!
So let me see. If Trump reduces a $30 drug by 300 percent, then the drug company will pay us $120 to “buy” it. Sweet! Sign me up! Trump sent letters to pharmaceutical manufacturers including AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, EMD Serono, Genentech, Gilead, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Regeneron and Sanofi. The letters listed steps to reduce the prices of prescription drugs in the U.S. “to match the lowest price offered in other developed nations (known as the most-favored-nation, or MFN, price).” Trump warned that if steps weren’t taken the federal government “will deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices.” Yep, sounds like ole Bernie to me.
Americans do pay significantly more for name brand drugs that most other countries. As a matter of fact those prices are often three times more. However, most American prescription drugs are of the generic variety and American generics are priced similar to those around the world. Even with the name brand drugs, Americans seldom see the full price given copays and insurance. It is well documented that other countries restrict high priced drugs that are available only to Americans – see the British and Canadian systems. Also our VA has less drugs available than you can get from your family doctor. I am reminded of the joke in which a guy walks into a gas station and says “Why are you charging $3.09 for regular? The station on the next block charges $2.89? The gas station guy says “Well why don’t you go over there?” “He’s out.” “Well when I’m out I also charge $2.89.”
The drug companies have talked about how much their R&D costs are and how much it costs to develop, go through the approval process and get a new designer drug to market. On average it takes from $1 – $2 billion to bring the drug to market and 10 to 15 years to go from development to approval. If Trump gets the drug companies to bend to his demands then look for all this to grind to a screeching halt. Yes we will still have drugs but the designer drugs developed to treat rare diseases will grind to a halt. But would you stay in business if you had to pay customers to take your product? What is Trump going to do next? Nationalize the drug companies?
Consider that the FDA approved the drug ipilimumab for the treatment of metastatic melanoma. Its cost is $120,000 for 4 doses. We see it advertised all over the place as Yervoy which works to activate the immune system by targeting CTLA-4, a protein receptor that downregulates the immune system. The commercial talks about “asking your doctor” and that the drug allows you to “live longer”. Now there are ads saying to link it with Opdivo with Yervoy is a combination of two chemo-free immunotherapy treatments and is “intended to treat adults who have been newly diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer.” What I want to know is if the drug is available through the Canadian and British health systems, what are the requirements for use and how much is the cost. I found the following regarding Canada, “One Canadian patient (Patient 7) accessed the combination therapy off-label through self-pay with 20% reimbursement through a Special Access Program, which resulted in approximately CA$100,000 in out-of-pocket fees. Five patients (Patients 3, 6, 9, 10, 11), all residents of the USA, were prescribed the combination therapy and received coverage from their private health insurance plan. Patient 14, a U.S. resident, was prescribed the combination therapy while it was still in phase 2 trials. Initially, his insurance provider denied coverage. However, after significant advocacy by his oncologist, full coverage for nivolumab and ipilimumab was eventually approved.” So much for free health care!
Quiz: What’s the difference between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders? Is it just the hair? Well Trump supporters say that Sanders is a communist while Sanders’ supporters say that Trump is a Nazi. But Nazi stands for the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party which actually sounds communist to me. So does this mean that Bernie is a Nazi?
haroldblackphd.com 
I watched the Leavitt delivery of Trump’s demand on the Gang of 17. I do not understand what it means to return profits fm abroad ‘To the American people’. I do not understand what Trumps means when he says he will use everything in his arsenal ( ?) to…do what?
Well, you know Bernie and Donald are fighting the same socialist cause. All health care is socialism, either shared risk thru insurance, govt confiscation for social programs thru tax funding- and now govt control of markets.
To the guy picking up his 6-pack at Weigels, that 6-pack is the only medication that matters.
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I’m sorry but no one in modern times should be called a Nazi unless they are a member of the Nazi party. The word Nazi is used way too easily these days and it shouldn’t be part of anyone’s vocabulary after 6 million Jews and 4 million other people were killed by the Nazis. It’s not cute to use the word food Nazi or any other description using the word Nazi. No more than people should run around slinging the N-word like it had no meaning at all. I also don’t think that comparing Trump to Sanders in the same breath is correct either. In my opinion,They aren’t even close in their philosophies.
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What do Europeans pay for their drugs? About 40% less because their governments negotiate. Trump is proposing the same.
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