Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Bernie Sanders’ $3.5 trillion spending orgy includes a poison pill — almost literally.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that H.R. 3 (AKA the Lower Drug Costs Now Act) would help “pay for” this fiscal incontinence by squeezing $581.6 billion from the pharmaceutical industry over the next 10 years.
More than just a tax on “evil, drug companies,” this measure would blackmail this sector, chop into its bottom line, and torpedo research and development. This would mean more ailments and earlier deaths for everyday Americans. In other words, just another day at the office for Democrats.
H.R. 3 would force pharmaceutical manufacturers to haggle over prices with federal functionaries. But this is not just bargaining between buyers and sellers. H.R. 3 defines “negotiation” as Washington bureaucrats dictating an amount that they feel like paying for a drug, based on overseas price controls mandated via socialized medicine. Those fixed prices would regulate all sales – to Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers.
And what if a drug company resists this new policy? That’s when federal extortion kicks in.
Pharmaceutical firms that will not swallow Uncle Sam’s prices would face taxes on gross revenues (not net profits) that start at 65 percent. But that tribute rises every 90 days that any such enterprise refuses to be bludgeoned. Ultimately, as Biden said at the White House on August 12: “It means drug companies would have to sell their drugs to all distributors at the Medicare price or face up to a 95 percent excise tax.”
Applied to dating, this is akin to: “Let’s spend the night together. If not, you’re free to go home naked — but you can keep your shoes on.” H.R. 3 must have been written by Democrat mega-donor Harvey Weinstein.
This Left-wing scheme would rip huge chunks out of drug companies’ hides. CBO forecasts that “Negotiations would reduce prices by 57 percent to 75 percent, relative to current prices.” Of course, even a 75 percent sales drop beats a 95 percent cut. This helps explain the Leninist levels of this proposed new tax.
Healthcare consultancy Avalare predicts that, across this industry, H.R. 3’s price controls could affect up to 550 drugs and slash drugmakers’ aggregate revenues by $1.65 trillion within five years.
So, what? If pharmaceutical CEOs must postpone their new yacht purchases or buy slightly smaller ski chalets, they will survive.
If only the world were so cartoonishly simple.
Punching the drug industry in the mouth gives regular patients bloody lips. If H.R. 3 slices drug companies’ incomes, they will have less money to create new and better drugs.
“The proposals that we’re seeing from Congress will devastate this industry,” said Merck chairman Kenneth Frazier. “Our ability to fund R&D inside Merck will be reduced by almost half.”
This means emptier medicine chests.
University of Chicago professor Tomas Philipson expects H.R. 3 to abort between 167 and 342 new drugs by 2039.
A vaccine against the common cold? A pill that stops miscarriages? A cure for prostate cancer? Gummies that reverse Alzheimer’s? H.R. 3 could entomb such inventions in their test tubes.
“If the government can pick any arbitrarily low price it wants, and prevent a company from saying ‘no’ by threatening it with a ruinous 95 percent tax, then I could not justify any biomedical R&D investment to my investors,” said financier Peter Kolchinsky. “In other words, we should expect a near total collapse of R&D funding.”
Among other innovations, pharmaceutical companies have created drugs such as Avastin and Gleevec that — for many — have transformed cancer from a death sentence into a temporary headache. Descovy and Truvada are, essentially, AIDS-vaccine pills. And President Donald J. Trump’s Operation Warp Speed inspired Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson to deliver COVID-19 inoculations in a record 12 months.
The cure-crushing H.R. 3 is how Democrats say thank you for these miracles and threaten unseen breakthroughs.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor, a contributing editor with National Review Online, and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of TrumpTrainNews.com
I believe that you will do this or I am going to do this to you. Extortion? Or a well known term? QUID PRO QUO………
What really pi$$e$ me off is the fake photo op. As soon as these ethically dead clowns are out of sight, the masks come off. I think they should have the masks glued to their ugly faces until they decide to leave us the h3ll alone!
Anything that the Democrat controlled Government is involved in, we the People, get Screwed.
Amen
This country will not survive much longer and that is what the dems want to do. Kill us and our country. But I will be damned if they do not do everything they can do to make if faster. They walk in satan’s shoes. I have no idea why the military or someone does not shut then down. They have all the proof they need to prove that they stole the election and they plan to destroy the country and have us all die. I would hate to be them when our Lord judges them. No heaven for them probably.
Since BIG PHARMA is a huge donor to the Dems, and, also a donor to the GOP, and, since BIG PHARMA controls the FDA, and its various departments, any regulation of drugs that is introduced, while the Dems are in power, must be for the benefit of BIG PHARMA.
Your ASSumptions are pure BS. The Democrats consider the medical profession an enemy.
The $3.5 T is pure pork. Try to imagine a trillion. Just one. It’s four times all the stars in the milky way galaxie. It’s 1/2 of all the galaxies in the entity universe. These greedy, treasonous democrats throw trillions around like its simply a few dollars. It’s not. It’s the gross national product of 98% of all the countries on earth combined. This is pure treason.
Pluck the pharmaceutical companies.
Not that I’m a fan of Big Pharma, but this is totally anti-American. It’s communistic. Entrepreneurs are going to take their talents and money overseas if these types of practices are commonplace.
To hell with those bastards literally!! imho
THE SOCIALIZATION OF MEDS FOR SLACKERS.
Don’t get the idea that if HR3 passed it would save US money. The politicians would just line their own pockets with the savings
I do not feel sorry for big pharma in the least, but this bill is an engorged pile of waste, pork and misguided attempts. Bipartisan children could do better.
I’m glad I have fully lived my life. This country is a shell of what it use to be. Why I do not know but it seems like we are becoming totally self centered and tribal. This country is going down. We have no more honesty honor pride and love towards each other. The people I run into our wonderful but the top is definitely evil. And enjoys dealing out the absurd using our money against. They are a sick bunch and seem entrenched in the belief we all need to be destroyed for their addiction to money and power. The trust has been irretrievably broken from my point of view.
This looks like just another scheme to reduce the human population without having a nuclear war….
They innovative pharma will go offshore to a tax haven. The market will be smaller but the rich like Pelosi can afford the treatment just like the rich are doing now with Therapuetics. How else can they all show up at a event like Obama’s birthday and that event last week where Sandy Ortega showed off. They all have therapeutics to fall back on now that FDA squashed the 2nd booster shot.
I meant Sandy Cortez.
This madness has to end. By force if necessary. You can’t talk to hard headed idiots. Their time has got to be eliminated. We the People need to stand up and say no more. Anybody with me on this. Let me know. Nuff’said.
Yep. These people are dyed-in-the-wool fanatics in pursuit of power. Whatever horrible scheme they cook up to gain power and money will rob us (We the People) but THEY the privileged elites will be exempted from it all with their Rolls Royce retirement and medical plans, stock options, etc. It’s all do as I say, not as I do.
The Next War America has SHOULD BE ON DEMOCRAPS AND ANYONE LIKE EM….PINKO PUDDLES OF COMMIE PUKE…🖕
No R&D & no drugs like the Wuhan virus vaccines then right, Bad move Biden