Why are drug prices so high? Blame big money in politics.

Judith Butler | The News Journal

Judith Butler is a retired pharmacologist and nurse and is a leader of American Promise Delaware, a pro-democracy organization working for an amendment to get big money out of politics.

Champagne corks were popping on Wall Street on May 11. President Trump had just delivered his “American Patients First” speech to address the soaring cost of prescription drugs.

Investors in the pharmaceutical sector had reason to celebrate there were few teeth in the president’s new policy, and the ones that were there had unspecified timelines. At the closing bell that day, the pharmaceutical sector had surged 2.7 percent on the S&P 500.

Much of the President’s speech chastised Europeans for paying too little for medications, because their countries negotiate lower prices with drug companies. What wasn’t in the speech, however, was Trump’s campaign pledge that Medicare officials would be able to negotiate lower prices with drug manufacturers, and that consumers would be allowed to import prescription drugs from countries with lower-priced drugs.

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Policies like that would have meant significant savings for patients and would have saved billions of tax dollars, reducing the deficit and national debt and prolonging the viability of Medicare.

Reining in exorbitant drug costs would have been a huge win for the president, burnishing his image as a “populist.”

A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 80 percent of Americans think drug costs are unreasonably high. Millions of us can’t afford the co pays and deductibles, let alone the full cost, for life-saving medications. We adapt by taking partial doses, sharing medications with others, declaring bankruptcy, or simply going without. Many die prematurely.

Pharmaceutical companies claim they need to overprice drugs to fund research and development. But this claim rings hollow for an industry that spends far more on marketing than on research and development; that spends, on average, $30 million in campaign contributions for each election cycle; that spent $2.3 billion on lobbying during the decade between 2006 and 2016; and that regularly enjoys annual profit margins of 15-20 percent.

Why would the President propose such a weak policy for this life-or-death issue? Perhaps it relates to his choice of Alex Azar as Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Daniel Best as HHS Secretary for Drug Pricing Reform. Secretary Azar was a former Eli Lilly executive, and Mr. Best was a former executive at Pfizer and at CVS Caremark. Eli Lilly and Pfizer ranked among the top 5 pharmaceutical companies in campaign contributions during the 2016 election cycle.

The pharmaceutical industry contributes generously to Republican and Democratic candidates, but in 2016, President Trump’s Republican party received 60 percent of the campaign contributions from Big Pharma.

After an election, it’s pay-back time. Big Pharma sends their lobbyists to Capitol Hill to lobby for watered-down regulations and against efforts to control drug prices. In 2017, drug companies and their trade associations spent $171.5 million on lobbying according to the Center for Responsive Politics — more than any other industry — and deployed 882 lobbyists.

Where do we, the American citizens, fit in this cozy relationship between Big Pharma, Congress and the President? We don’t.

Big Pharma is just one of the sources of big money that fund political campaigns and lobbyists. Others include Wall Street, oil and gas industries, health insurance, the NRA, military contractors, unions, and billionaires, to name just a few. Legislators now spend half their time fundraising the enormous sums of money needed for campaigns.

When our legislators rely on big money to fund their campaigns, their votes reflect the interests of their funders over their constituents’ and the common good.

Why is it like this? In a series of decisions, the US Supreme Court has ruled that money is a form of free speech and that corporations, unions, and certain non-profits are “people,” with the same rights as individual citizens. Therefore, they argue that these chartered entities have the right to spend unlimited money in our elections.

Moreover, most restrictions on campaign spending by deep-pocketed individuals have also been lifted.

If we ever hope to have our legislators represent "we the people," we must work together to overrule the Supreme Court by passing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would end the undue influence of Big Pharma — and of all Big Money — in our elections and governance. It’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to work to reclaim our democracy.

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