The prices of prescription drugs in the US have long been prohibitively expensive. Especially for those without insurance coverage. They are part of a not fit for purpose insurance scam, aimed at fleecing everyday Americans. The one thing Trump excels at is picking a strap line and turning it into what I like to call a ‘jam tomorrow statement’. Just like ‘no tax on tips’, no tax on overtime and ‘no tax on Social Security’, they are sound bites and nothing else. They’re designed to make the persistent claim of ‘promise made, promise kept,’ when in reality, they're performative legislative bills that will never reach the desk of the president.
I suspect this is yet another example of the art of misdirection. What is truly sickening about his proclamations is the deliberate false hope they deliver to struggling Americans, and that is unforgivable on so many levels. It represents a pattern of wilful cruelty that has become emblematic of an administration drowning in corruption and the exploitation of the vulnerable.
Trump and his handlers know there are key issues, and if they give the illusion of addressing them, even though they have no intention of doing so, it will sedate the population and allow their messaging machine to create yet another false narrative. It is sickening to those of us who have the intellectual capacity to see what’s going on. People often ask, WHAT CAN WE DO? I wish I could provide a simple answer, but there isn’t one. The electoral system allowed 30% of eligible voters to commit an egregious act of self-harm after allowing a convicted criminal to lie his way into the White House, aided and abetted by the Supreme Court of the United States. This is a structural problem that is not easily fixed, certainly not in the short term.
Back to the matter at hand, I often find myself thinking, ‘Is he really that stupid?’ when he talks about many things, but on this one, he would have to have lost his mind to think that big pharma will allow him to seriously damage their obscene profits. The problem of prescription drug extortion is a longstanding issue that Congress has failed to address because of dark money. Money, which dictates that drug and pharmaceutical companies are a protected species. It’s this lobby that Trump knows he will face, and he’s happy to provide a made-for-TV battle, in which he’s portrayed as David fighting Goliath. Great for his image of standing up for everyday Americans, but behind the scenes, he’s said to them, “pretend to punch and hurt me”, but don’t worry, I’ve got your back. His social media army is already setting the scene.
To understand the context, it is essential to comprehend how the system operates, as outlined in the video at the top of this article. However, what I want to do is return to the core problem. Healthcare in America is a profit centre. Republicans and some Democrats, funded by insurance and big pharma, have for decades convinced the public that a single-payer healthcare system is ‘communism’. This is absurd, but there it is. The result? Anyone who falls ill is ripe for extortion in their name. In what world is that acceptable? In the land of the free, of course, where NOTHING is free. Let’s get back to basics with this excellent clip from Vox, from seven years ago. It could have been produced yesterday, because nothing has changed.
Once profit is the motive and not medical care, you are a society lost in the weeds trying to justify that it’s OK for someone to die because they can’t afford to buy
Insulin. I am privileged to live in a country which for all it’s failings, has the NHS. A healthcare system paid for through taxation. It’s accessed as service which we describe as, ‘free at the point of delivery’. If I or anyone experiences a medical crisis, care is available regardless of the ability to pay. In the UK, as in many European countries, society takes the collective responsibility to provide help in moments of medical crisis. Nobody here is going to take a confused patient who is deteriorating and reducing the hospital’s bottom line, and dump them in front of some other hospital for them to pick up the tab. Someone would be sent to jail.
I’m sorry, but you can’t claim to be the richest and greatest nation on earth while punishing someone for falling on hard times or suffering a medical crisis. Only in America does losing your job mean losing your access to essential healthcare. There is no better example of what should be a breach of human rights.
The whole Republican agenda is based on selling snake oil and hiding the truth. It is vile and insidious, designed to punish and devalue the ‘other’, be they poor, disabled, an immigrant, a member of the LGBTQ community or even a woman when it comes to reproductive healthcare. It is an agenda built on cruelty and exploitation.
Trump’s war on prescription drug costs is not his first rodeo on the issue. He tried it in his first term and it was halted in the courts. In my view, that’s EXACTLY what will happen again with this attempt. Executive orders are NOT legislation and big pharma knows that. His proclamation has no enforcement mechanism simply because he intends it to go nowhere. What he’s actually trying to do is jack up costs overseas which will generate more profit for US pharma. All he’s done is trash the Biden administration’s progress on ACTUALLY reducing drug prices, to once again claim to be fixing a problem he’s created himself. He is predictability personified. Please my friends, DO NOT plan your future based on prescription drug prices being reduced.
While we are on the subject of drug pricing though, it’s worth looking at the system that is the poster boy for price gouging. Medical care in a fair society should be driven by clinical need not profit. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the US healthcare system. The lure of obscene profits tragically renders care driven by clinical need irrelevant. Medicare and Medicaid fraud is I believe rampant, not from patients, but from corporate bad actors. These have even included a sitting member of the US Senate (Tim Scott) who during his time as CEO of Columbia/HCA — now known as HCA Healthcare, saw his company found guilty of the largest Medicare fraud in history at the time. Columbia/HCA pleaded guilty to 14 felonies — most of which were committed during Scott’s time leading the company. The point here is, politicians are part of the problem and self enrichment for many, has aided and abetted the industry to perpetrate persistent and continuous acts of theft against the American people that continue to this day.
As stated by the Department of Justice at the time :
This settlement marks the conclusion of the most comprehensive health care fraud investigation ever undertaken by the Justice Department, working with the Departments of Health and Human Services and Defense, the Office of Personnel Management and the states. The settlement announced today resolves HCA's civil liability for false claims resulting from a variety of allegedly unlawful practices, including cost report fraud and the payment of kickbacks to physicians
An equitable society can’t exist where state-sanctioned theft from the people is one of the central tenets of government. I am not naive; I understand that skimming and creative accounting are tragically the cost of doing business in the modern world. The simple fact of the matter is, until fraud is truly addressed, you can’t even begin to solve the problem. Just as the banking sector preyed on people and shattered lives by providing the hope of home ownership to those who could not afford the mortgage payments, private healthcare providers play footsie with insurance companies to quite literally decide who lives and dies. There can be no moral justification for such behaviour. It’s no surprise, then, that under Trump 2.0, the DOJ is being told to shift resources from white collar crime to border-related issues, and the IRS is being gutted.
There has long been an understanding in most developed nations, key services like health care should be non-profit in a responsible society. However, in the US, they are seen as an opportunity and deliver rich pickings for predatory corporations seeking profit from the suffering of others.
There is no better example of excess profiteering than in prescription drugs, and that is why they are a hot-button subject for Americans. The racketeering and extortion is driven by what Trump described as ‘middle men’, better known as Pharmacy Benefit Managers. It’s really important to listen to this clip from a year ago before reading on.
OK, if you have watched the clip, AOC is absolutely on the money (pun intended). She strikes at the very heart of the problem. It is because she is addressing a critical failure in the system that Republicans hate her and establishment Democrats want to rein her in. The system is utterly broken and has been infiltrated by predatory corporate thieves. But I hear you say, “that’s precisely what Trump wants to address with his executive order”. Then my question to you is, why revoke the EO that Joe Biden had already enacted, which was the opening move to reduce drug costs?
You could claim he was tinkering around the edges. He was, because he understood that shock and awe do not tend to end well and get tied up in court. Trump knows that’s exactly what's going to happen to his new executive order, and he’ll simply turn around and say, “Well, I tried my best” Meanwhile, in the performative battle that takes place between him and the drug companies, he has opened the door to them charging higher prices to other developed countries where the drugs are currently cheaper. Win-win.
I simply expect lobby groups to go into overdrive to head this threat off at the pass, but I do have a word of warning for Republicans in this moment. What Trump is doing may appeal to the tribal warrior in you, but if you suffer electoral defeat as a result of these acts of unbridled cruelty and lies, be ready for the opposition to use the broken system you have created to banish you to the electoral wilderness for a generation. Just as the Mujahideen used the stinger missiles America supplied to deliver revenge. It’s for this reason that MAGA want to exclude Dems from the electoral process before the next election.
I urge you to look beyond the sound bite and reality TV narrative. Don’t panic too much though. I’m here to help get to the bottom of the true intent of Trump’s misdirection.
