Passing Obamacare the Chicago Way
This little problem went away, just like Mexican permit difficulties, when drug companies agreed to changes in Medicaid and new fees that would raise $80 billion to offset Obamacare costs. And drug companies also agreed to spend millions of their own money on an ad campaign supporting “health care reform.” As a bonus, druggies also got a new captive market and Obama dropped support for importing cheaper Canadian drugs.
Right here you’ve got your quids and your pro quos. In Texas, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a doyen of “progressive” circles, indicted Attorney General Jim Mattox for fund–raising calls that weren’t nearly as blatant as these “negotiations.” Yet it’s business as usual in the capital as Attorney General Eric Holder spends his time attempting a posthumous indictment of Pitchfork Ben Tillman.
Here’s another similarity between the two cases. In Mexico, not one government official went public when Wal–Mart money crossed his palm, which is saying something because even in the District of Columbia’s government you can occasionally stumble across an honest man. And of course Wal–Mart paid because that’s how one gets things done in a corrupt environment.
Similarly, not one White House minion felt the least bit unclean about participating in the Obama protection racket, and the drug companies paid because that’s how you get things done in a Chicago administration.
Once you get past the general atmosphere of third–world sleaziness, the really insulting fact is the Mexicans got the better deal.
Wal–Mart is the largest employer in Mexico and it is planning to add an additional 23,000 new jobs. Mexican shoppers have new, modern stores with “everyday low prices” and senior citizens asking if you “want a sticker on that” when you enter the store.
On the other hand, U.S. taxpayers are going to get a health care system that will soon resemble Mexico’s along with ballooning Obamacare deficits and fees the drug companies will pass along to them.
Progressive moralizers passed the Corrupt Foreign Practices Act to protect the third–world from its own culture. When are they going to get around to passing a Corrupt Domestic Practices Act to protect us from “negotiations” like this?
It’s fascism, but of course, a good kind of fascism, not the bad kind like the Nazis practiced. Coercion for a good cause, defined by the coercer, is always good whereas coercion for a bad cause is always bad.
Now that that’s cleared up, we can move on to advanced studies in tyranny, dictatorships, statism, and marxism.
Life is going to be SOOO good when our rulers work the little kinks out of thir pograms.
And everything will be peaceful, forever. The intermittant thugism, fraud and intimdataion that seems to happen quite a bit during the early stages of transformation will subside soon enough and us equals will all love each other equally, so there will be no reason for envy, violence or crime. There would be hundreds of examples of great successes, if republicans didn’t always get in the way and gum up the works. But as you know, those Tea Party types are relentless about their guns and religion, so there isn’t really a good example of success yet. But after the election, oh boy.
Pograms? Did you mean pogroms?
Bit of a Freudian slip there…
There is an old saying: “You can take the boy out of the country, but you cannot take the country out of the boy.”
A corollary might be: “You can take the political hack out of Chicago, but you cannot take Chicago out of the political hack.”
weo, I hope that was sarcasm or you need a med check.
Pharma made a deal with the devil, so to speak, in exchange for the then popular cool president in exchange for the devil not demonizing the hell out “Big Pharma” the way they he was demonizing “Big Business” and “Big Insurance” and “Big Oil”
Obamacare, left unchecked will gut the pharmaceutical industry of all new R&D for the forseeable future. It could begin like this:
“Today, January 21, 2013, I, Barack Obama, wish to announce my new ‘Affordable Drugs Initiative’, effective immediately by my executive order, which will finally cap the price of lifesaving drugs for women and children and minorities and undocumented workers and the LGBT community and all Americans who still believe in my vision and haven’t bought that ridiculous teabagger smear that I somehow stole the election. (Laughter) Let me tell you about my NEW kill list! (more laughter) But all joking aside, there is no reason that this pill (holds up a tablet) that costs ten cents to make should cost more than ten cents! (Standing Ovation)”
Yeah I really think he is that dense. I have NO reason to believe otherwise. and that goes for his supporters.
There is an old saying “He who sups with the Devil should take a long spoon”.
Big Pharma took a woefully short spoon and ended up with burnt fingers!
What they gave away is only the bulk of their domestic markets in patented drugs, when foreign generic producers under cut their pricing and a frantic Obamacare administration needs to reduce costs. With that loss Big Pharma will have no choice but to curtail expenditures and the hardest hit will be research. Adding to the misery, Pharma will have lost access to investment capital and become another casualty of Hope and Change. Hope you like Ranbaxy and Dr. Reddy and an un-named African conglomerate supplying all your basic meds.
If one really believes in Demonizing the best target so far is “BIG GOVERNMENT”
I worked in Pharmaceuticals as a medicinal chemist for a number of years, and was rather dismayed at the number of knee-jerk liberals, especially in high places in the company. Of course, like me, thousands of R&D scientists were laid off and face a dismal jobs market. I found a teaching position, but many of my former colleagues are either still unemployed, in a different field, or have moved (back) overseas.
Obama and Obamacare are monumental disasters for America
The root cause, I think, of liberalism, and it’s progeny, socialism/marxism/stalinism, is (wait for it) anger.
Given that anger is perhaps one of the most, if not THE most powerful of human emotions, there were times when humans were better at controlling it rather than letting it run their lives.
But liberals, the knee-jerk types you mentioned, are very angry people. When conservatives are angry, they look at themselves first, evaluate, measure the reasons as to why they’re angry and come to a conclusion that it’s either internally or externally motivated and then determine how to make that a productive, rather than a destructive thing.
The liberal, in contrast, sees all reasons for being made angry as the cause of someone or something else; That there is nothing wrong with themselves. Thus, they thrive on it and it’s very obvious when you see an OWS group, anti-gun or anti-Bush group. It’s as if their anger is their very reason for existing. And so, it would seem, it is.
Every liberal I’ve watched, especially these past few years has displayed complete and utter anger, bordering on childish tantrum. Reid, perfect example. Pelosi, contemptuous anger, you can see it in her face.
And, their anger started in their formative years and was never metered or checked by a smart parent. They were never taught that it’s ok to be angry but to use it for making a positive result. It’s a nuance that humanity is losing its ability to master. The “me” generation of the 80s was the people who are in power now and they are just as self-centered angry little sh*ts as they were when they were eleven or fifteen or twenty-seven or forty-five. Why? Because they never learned how to deal with it and got enough reinforcement from fellow travelers to perpetuate it. The mob-attitude if you will.
“Don’t know why I’m angry, but everyone else around me is, so I’m angry too”.
Never have I seen a group more in need of deep psychotherapy than our current rendition of elected people. They’ve been angry all their lives and never learned how to cope with it, but instead how to foster it and use it for evil by making everyone else as angry as they are.
It all boils down to Harris’ (the self-help guru of the ’70s) case of “I’m OK, you’re not OK.” This goes far to explain why liberals are so unreasonable with regard to so many issues.
I bet this is just the tip of the ice berg in terms of intimidating the health care industry. I kept wondering whey health care/insurance companies just rolled over on this debate even though Ocare will put them out of business. Think about it. Where was the furor or the hot rhetoric during the passage of this travesty called Obama care. There was very little coming out of the industry so their lobbyists and inside the beltway consultants were cutting big deals with this corrupt administration “chicago style.” These creeps need to go to jail.
They must be biding their time. If Obama is voted out of office, the pressure will be on from many quadrants to repeal his disastrous health care program post haste. It’s mainly due to affirmative action that Obama has been handled, on just about every policy issue, with kid gloves. This is why it’s so important to vote him out this November; it’s the only way he can be defeated.
the chicago thugs are pulling all the stops out. intimidation of the u.s.s.c. is probably still going on, under the radar, about fraudcare. at least two of these ‘honorables’ aren’t qualified to sit in judgement at a pie eating contest, turning our whole government into a corrupt extension of the fraud for prez.
so, the honorable criminal holder is still giving illegal orders to states (fla., ariz.) in this administration’s blatant attempt to steal the next election. he knows no matter what he does the kenyan will pardon him on his way out the door. what a mess you get when known halfwit commies gain control of the gov.
question: i’ve heard that there is a new (remote) way of rigging voting machines for voter fraud. wonder will they use it tuesday in that election? our lame media saying it is close gives them cover. i’m sure our honest ‘justice’ dept. ee’s will be earning their paychecks monitoring it. nothing like integrity in our pirates in public ‘servant’s’ costumes.
i personally saw the local dem’s (they had dem pol signs all around it) giving out free minutes over in obamaland areas the other day. they had a computer set up under a tent that said free minutes w/ obamobots lined up out the door. hmmmmm? probably just some more honesty going on, the progressive way.
The reason Obama is so frustrated with the Supreme Court is that he hasn’t figured out a foolproof method of stealing Supreme votes. Of course, in the last three months, he’s doled out no-show government jobs to every right leaning family member of a present day Supreme Court he could find. Which just might work. This miscreant of a President has to be stopped before he corrupts every last piece of government; Operation Fast and Furious simply being the most egregious. Holder is so corrupt he’ll need two Presidential pardons to let him safely get out of Dodge.
It’s a wonder any major corporation stays here in the United States. Pretty soon all the major pharmaceutical firms will be located overseas. If the cost of doing business here in the United States goes too high because of government regulations and interventions, companies will just leave. I’m not sure we would have much luck threatening a drug company that is based in India or China. Especially China, which seems to produce anything it wants with almost no regulation at all. Major corporations may just give up and leave. And their position will be, “Well, if you want our drugs which work real well, you’ll have to buy it from us here in Singapore, not in New Jersey.” Then what will we say? If enough pharmaceutical firms leave, they could literally blackmail us by withholding vital medications and simply selling them to other countries around the world.
You say it can’t happen to us? Don’t count on it. One of the downsides of “glabalization” is that major corporations can now open factories almost anywhere in the world, especially if there is a lot of money involved. If the Feds keep leaning on these people, they will just leave. Then who will make the drugs that are needed to keept this aging population going? Why the Chinese, of course. And that’s a very bad situation to be in.
Exactly. The war on pharma actually began with Hillarycare. Even after Hillarycare died, she and her cronies warned pharma that they would keep trying until they got their way. And pharma listened; after that debacle, the industry went on the defensive, and it’s been contracting ever since. My husband, a pharma scientist, has been laid off 3 times in the last 8 years. This used to be one of the most innovative, fastest-growing industries in the US, providing excellent products and thousands of great-paying jobs. Now it’s a mere shell of itself. The industry has spent more time and money consolidating than creating. It’s shipped most of its R&D functions to those bastions of IP rights, China and India. It won’t be long before the bulk of manufacturing will go over there, too, and we won’t have any guarantee that the drugs we ingest will be safe or effective.
I’m SO not surprised that the pharma industry was blackmailed into “supporting” Obamacare. I can only pray that it’s overturned by SCOTUS. Then maybe the industry can refocus on the business of discovering, producing, and selling great products that help millions.
It costs over a billion dollars (might be 2-3 billion nowadays)to bring a drug from inception to market. The FDA never reduces regulations and rules and prohibitions and thus the process gets harder and harder and more and more expensive each year, solely due to the FDA.
Of course we want safe, well tested drugs, but that involves a huge amount of money complying with many time consuming, counterproductive and poorly thought out legal hurdles to approval. Like most big gov’t enterprises, the FDA is staffed with lawyers and bureaucrats, apparently most with little scientific training. And even after slogging through the ever more onerous FDA labyrinth, if any problems arise with the drug (real or lawyer fabricated) even after FEDERAL approval, massive class-action lawsuits are sure to follow. Remember lawyers nearly bankrupted Dow Corning over bogus breast implant claims which have been shown over and over to be completely baseless. That money, was stolen and will never be returned. Consumers just get higher prices. Obama care is of course famous for not even mentioning the lawsuit lottery that not only plagues every drug manufacturer but doctors, hospitals, health providers, device makers, etc. Obamacare tells lawyers: ‘Have at em’
Don’t get me wrong, Big Pharma brought some of this on itself, but that’s a story for another day. But regulations and lawsuits will at a minimum drive up prices for everyone else, if they don’t drive the entire industry overseas.
Obama, lawyers, and the FDA can bring the industry ‘to it’s knees’.
Reelect the chi-town clown and it will get much worse.
I hear ya. The first drug my husband worked on was Lipitor, in 1987. It was finally approved by the FDA in 1997. The company sent the NDA to the FDA in a semi-truck. Literally, there was THAT much paperwork.
This is an illustration of what big government leads to: Fascism! One kind of “inevitable” leads to another.
and Boeing had Labor Dept. charges for hurting unions in Wash. State, and were being denied the right to open a S. Car. factory. But as soon as the management and unions settled, the charges disappeared.
and what about the comcast mergers where “poor” people get free cell phones and TV and internet connections?
Great to see Michael Shannon running here as well. Good perspectives that leave you with a chuckle.
And I wonder what AARP was promised, in order to get with the program. They were big supporters, despite the Medicare cuts sure to follow.
About 10 billion in future income derived from their insurance division…
Published on May 13, 2012 This was filmed in Elgin, Illinois about 40 miles from Chicago. I assume it’s for the NATO summit this week as a security measure. Footage of a drone!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzrS0BVJynM&feature=player_embedded