What health care crisis?

 

How's he going to pull this off?

 

We'll see.

And there's that "thank you for your attention" line again.  WTF?

People are going to die needlessly

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Stop electing Republicans

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Florida can now import drugs from Canada

While the move allows Biden to claim another drug pricing win on the campaign trail, pollsters and political operatives said the fact Americans are unlikely to see their drug prices go down by November means the FDA’s decision is unlikely to have any tangible effect on the presidential election.

“It’s not happening right now,” said Jared Leopold, a Democratic strategist. “People aren’t going to see the impact of that before election time.”

[...]

Canada updated its regulations in 2021 to prevent drugs intended for Canadian consumers, including medicines eligible for bulk importation by the U.S., from being sold for use abroad if those exports could cause or worsen a drug shortage.

[...]

Pharma companies and the Canadian government — longtime opponents of bulk drug importation — are unlikely to sanction the flow of prescription drugs over the border. Canada has adopted regulatory guardrails to ensure drugs can’t be exported if it would exacerbate domestic supply issues, and drugmakers have indicated they won’t allocate more product to Canada than is earmarked for the country.

“The likelihood of this actually materializing is negligible,” said Eric Miller, a Washington-based trade consultant.

[...]

Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said those limitations essentially preclude drug importation under the Florida plan from becoming a reality.

  Politico

No surprise here. Of course Big Pharma is not going to do anything that reduces their income from America.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

A very prickly issue

The Biden administration has determined that it has the authority to seize the patents of certain high-priced medicines, a move that could open the door to a more aggressive federal campaign to slash drug prices.

The determination, which was described by three people familiar with the matter, represents the culmination of a nearly nine-month review of the government’s so-called march-in rights. Progressives have long insisted that those rights empower the administration to break the patents of pricey drugs that were developed with public funds.

[...]

[T]he Commerce Department on Thursday plans to issue a new framework spelling out factors that federal agencies should weigh in determining whether to take march-in action against expensive drugs or other individual products that were created with federal help. The price and availability of that product to the public are among the factors the department will recommend that agencies consider.

The department will seek public feedback on the framework.

[...]

Biden officials now plan to make a fresh push to put health care at the center of Biden’s reelection platform, rolling out proposals in the coming days that would expand on Democrats’ passage of laws capping insulin prices for Medicare recipients and allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of certain drugs.

  Politico

UPDATE 02:59 pm:

I wonder who decides the reasonable price.

Possible good news

What a return to GOP control over Congress will mean

Democrats across the country are denouncing the GOP's new plan to raise taxes on the majority of Americans should they win a majority in the 2022 midterm elections. But given a chance to distance themselves from National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Rick Scott's "Rescue America" proposal, not a single GOP senator or major Republican Senate candidate did so.

[...]

"All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax," the plan says.

While it is true that a majority of Americans did not pay any federal income tax in 2020 — while the pandemic shuttered much of the nation's economy — this claim is highly misleading.

Most of those people still paid Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. Even those who did not — very low-income families and retired older Americans who no longer earn an income — likely supported the federal government through gasoline, alcohol, or tobacco taxes.

  American Independent

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who has previously negotiated a plan to lower prescription drug costs with Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), admitted during a committee hearing it would likely be hard to pass if his own party regained control of Congress. He called on Democrats to pass it now.

  Politico

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The government giveth and the government taketh away

Old-timers might get hearing coverage, but their premiums will be gouging them.  So, IF it passes, some seniors will MAYBE break even by getting hearing aids, but those who don't need aids (or have alzheimer's) will be paying for it.

Seniors on Medicare will have to pay more than $20 more per month extra in premiums next year, a large increase that officials in part attributed to possible coverage of a pricey and controversial new Alzheimer's drug.

  The Hill

And of course, it's the pharmaceutical companies who get the benefits.

About half of that increase is due to contingency planning to make sure the program has enough money to pay for an expensive new Alzheimer's drug, if Medicare decides to cover it, an official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said.

Could it be worse? Yes. And it is.

That drug, called Aduhelm and made by the company Biogen, has drawn controversy both for its price, at $56,000 per year, and because the Food and Drug Administration approved it despite doubts from experts about its effectiveness.

But wait. Seniors are getting a cost-of-living increase. It just won't be as large as it would have been.

Administration officials emphasized Friday that most people on Medicare will also be getting a large cost of living increase in their Social Security payments next year, which they said would more than offset the rise in Medicare costs for many seniors.

"Most". "Large".

"Skyrocketing drug prices not only make it harder for seniors to afford the lifesaving drugs they need, but also drive up their health care premiums for doctor’s visits and outpatient care," House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) said in response to the announcement.

"This double financial whammy simply cannot continue, and that’s why Congress must pass the bicameral Medicare prescription drug agreement that was included in the Build Back Better Act last week."

Yeah? Allowing Medicare to negotiate for reasonable prices was taken out, wasn't it?

In early budget negotiations, it looked as if the Democrats were finally going to take on Big Pharma over spiraling drug prices. Then last week, drug pricing fell out of the bill altogether and it looked as if the drug companies had won again. Now there is a compromise that looks modest but could have real bite.

The drug price regulation Congress is now considering would achieve three main goals. It would limit the amount that Medicare patients can be asked to pay for drugs out-of-pocket. It would restrict how much drugmakers can increase their prices each year. And, for the first time, it would allow Medicare to negotiate directly with drugmakers on prices for their medications.

The provision on price negotiation was the one most substantially changed in the last week: It would apply to fewer drugs, require smaller discounts, and, most critically, shield new drugs from negotiations.

  NYT

So, I wonder which drugs they can negotiate on.

The policy isn’t simply smaller than the original. If enacted, it will save the federal government less money than the legislation passed by the House two years ago. But it is also less likely to hinder the development of new treatments and cures, the experts said.

Great. New drugs only the rich can afford.

The bill text could, of course, change or fail to become law.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Typical

Another way the US government subsidizes Big Pharma (and other industries) is by funding the research and then purchasing the resultant product for exorbitant prices.

Last Friday’s announcement that the new medicine [molnupiravir] cut the risk of hospitalization among clinical trial participants with moderate or mild illness in half could have huge implications for the course of the coronavirus pandemic. Because it’s a pill — as opposed to monoclonal antibodies, a comparable antiviral treatment that is administered intravenously — molnupiravir is expected to be more widely used and, hopefully, will cut the death rate. In the first 29 days of the trial, no deaths were reported among the 385 patients who received the drug, while eight of the people who received a placebo died.

[...]

Like the vast majority of medicines on the market, molnupiravir — which was originally investigated as a possible treatment for Venezuelan equine encephalitis — was developed using government funds.

[...]

Yet only Merck and Ridgeback will reap the profits from the new antiviral, which according to Quartz could bring in as much as $7 billion by the end of this year. After the announcement of the encouraging clinical trial results on Friday, Merck’s stock price climbed, while stock prices of some vaccine makers sagged. [...] The transaction is due to take place as soon as molnupiravir receives emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.

[...]

Good government advocates are pointing out that because federal agencies spent at least $29 million on the drug’s development, the government has the obligation to ensure that the medicine is affordable. “The public funded this drug, and therefore the public has some rights, including the rights you have it available under reasonable terms,” said Luis Gil Abinader, senior researcher at Knowledge Ecology International.

[...]

In the U.S., and likely in many upper-middle-income and all high-income countries, the price will be determined by the market. Noting that the treatment may be offered to people who are not yet severely sick with Covid-19, health advocates fear that will mean some in these countries will not be able to afford the new drug.

[...]

Meanwhile, the prices that private companies charge for drugs tend to go up rather than down. “For all these deals that have happened for therapeutics or vaccines, the price has only increased as uncertainty has decreased,” she said. “One price is given and then, for the next sale, the price goes up. The price went up for other drugs and vaccines, so I would be very surprised if this price didn’t go up, too.”

  The Intercept

Like I said, typical.

According to [Dzintars Gotham, a physician at King’s College Hospital in London and a co-author of the report on the pricing of molnupiravir,] the short story of molnupiravir already sums up the best and the worst of the U.S. pharmaceutical system. “It’s a great coup that the American government funded some scientists to develop antivirals,” he said. “The great tragedy is that, after their great success, they just gave it away to private industry with apparently no strings attached.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It was never not safe

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Joe Manchin is a DINO

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) wrote in a Charleston Gazette-Mail op-ed Sunday that he will not support congressional Democrats' expansive election and anti-corruption bill, suggesting the measure is partisan.

  Axios

Christ. What does he think all those Republican state-level voter suppression bills are?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

He doesn't care about YOU

In the midst of exceptionally positive results from COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, President Trump has voiced his dissatisfaction with the timing of the news, implying that positive data from clinical trials were deliberately withheld until after Election Day.

Now, The Washington Post reports that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services may release a blueprint to lower drug prices within Medicare through an executive order called the “most favored nation.”

The “most favored nation” price refers to the lowest price for a pharmaceutical drug or product sold in a member country of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development with a similar gross domestic product.

[...]

>The Post notes that the policy is unpopular in the pharmaceutical industry because it would force drug manufacturers to accept the lowest price from the government for medicines that were paid in similarly wealthy countries.
[...]

Speaking to The Post, one GOP health care lobbyist said that this move is pointed at pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Moderna, whose COVID-19 vaccine candidates each recently exhibited about 95 percent efficacy rates.

“This is basically Trump being pissed off because he thought the industry campaigned against him and delayed in announcing the [vaccine] results, so he is going to get back at them with favored nations,” they said.

  The Hill

His whole life is "getting back at" someone.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

When you lose Big Pharma

"Two weeks" "Nobody's ever done anything like it"

Trump, while on a campaign swing to Nevada, tweeted that he'd signed an order on the "most favored nation" plan, which would try to link Medicare Part B and Part D prices to lower prices paid by other countries. The approach was broader than an initial effort that only targeted Part B.

The order is a first step that instructs the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to begin the rule-making process to test "a payment model" for some medicines. It offered few details.

  alJazeera

Because they know it's not going to happen. It was something for him to campaign on. That's it.

"The cost of prescription drugs will be dropping like a rock very soon," Trump said Sunday at a rally in Henderson, Nevada. "The drug companies don't like me too much."

They're not the only ones.

The order falls far short of an immediate cut that Trump has touted would lower patients' out-of-pocket costs. Instead, it starts the process for HHS Secretary Alex Azar to test the impact of such a change. That likely means patients won't see lower prices until well after the U.S. presidential election in November, if at all, as the path to lowering drug prices remains uncertain.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Denied

A White House meeting with pharmaceutical executives that President Trump said would occur on Tuesday is now off, people familiar with the matter said.

  The Hill

Kind of like that throwing out the first pitch for the Yankees, eh?

Trump had announced during Friday's signing ceremony that there would be a meeting at the White House with industry executives on Tuesday, which he said would give drug companies a chance to propose an alternative to one of his executive orders. Drug companies, however, never publicly confirmed that they would attend the meeting.

[...]

The executive order in question would lower the prices Medicare pays for certain drugs by tying them to lower prices in other countries. Trump said Friday he would delay the order from going into effect until Aug. 25 to give companies time to propose an alternative. "We’re going to see them on Tuesday," Trump said last week. "We’ll see if we can do something here."

[...]

A pharmaceutical industry source said that "there was concern that this would not have been a productive meeting" and that companies are still discussing how to move forward after Trump signed a series of executive orders on Friday taking aim at drug prices.

[...]

Another issue cited by the pharmaceutical industry source was the fact that the White House has not released the text of the executive order in question.

"We don't even know what we're negotiating against," the source said.

The White House has declined to say when it will release the text.

What in the world?!

More broadly, there is a question as to when any executive order on drug prices would go into effect. Further steps in the regulatory process would likely have to play out, making it unclear when or even if any changes will take effect and lead to lower drug costs for consumers.

Democrats have dismissed the executive orders as election year stunts that have no real teeth.

No teeth? Not even a mouth.

He just says shit and expects people to either forget he said it or bust their asses making it happen after the fact.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The GOP has found the bridge it will not cross with Trump

The White House is considering one or more executive orders aimed at lowering drug prices that could come as soon as this week, prompting pushback from some GOP lawmakers and the powerful pharmaceutical industry.

One idea under discussion, sources say, is to link some U.S. drug prices to the lower prices paid overseas, an idea that is opposed by many Republicans, who see it as a price control that violates free-market principles.

  The Hill

What they see it as is a reduction in their Big Pharma contributions.

Some congressional Republicans have been calling the White House in recent days to raise objections to the proposal, sources say, an effort spurred on by the pharmaceutical industry, which is rallying to try to stop the idea.

[...]

A Senate GOP aide said some Republican lawmakers have been contacting the White House to make known their opposition.

“We thought this thing was dead,” said a pharmaceutical industry source, who said the industry is mobilizing and contacting its congressional GOP allies to try to stop it.

The conservative group FreedomWorks on Tuesday announced a six-figure Hulu and digital ad buy against the idea, warning of “socialist price controls.”

I'd be willing to bet the word "socialist" won't even scare people off the idea of drug price controls.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Christian nations unite!

Ministers and officials from every nation will meet via video link on Monday for the annual world health assembly, which is expected to be dominated by efforts to stop rich countries monopolising drugs and future vaccines against Covid-19.

  Guardian

Good luck with THAT!

As some countries buy up drugs thought to be useful against the coronavirus, causing global shortages, and the Trump administration does deals with vaccine companies to supply America first, there is dismay among public health experts and campaigners who believe it is vital to pull together to end the pandemic.

While the US and China face off, the EU has taken the lead. The leaders of Italy, France, Germany and Norway, together with the European commission and council, called earlier this month for any innovative tools, therapeutics or vaccines to be shared equally and fairly.

“If we can develop a vaccine that is produced by the world, for the whole world, this will be a unique global public good of the 21st century,” they said in a statement.

Wait...what? We can't let that pass unchallenged. We're the USA!

Countries with major pharmaceutical companies argue they need patents to guarantee sufficiently high prices in wealthy nations to recoup their research and development costs.

Much of their research and development comes from government grants and research.

A hard-fought battle over Aids drugs 20 years ago led to the World Trade Organisation’s Doha declaration on trade-related intellectual property (Trips) in favour of access to medicines for all, but the US, which has some of the world’s biggest drug companies, has strongly opposed wording that would encourage the use of Trips.

Quel suprise.

“In general, it is a disappointment, appalling really. There was better text that was rejected,” said Jamie Love of Knowledge Ecology International. “The US, UK, Swiss and some others, pushed against the WHO taking the lead in pushing for open licensing of patents and knowhow for drugs and vaccines.

“In a global crisis like this, that has such a massive impact on everyone, you would expect the WHO governing body to have the backbone to say no monopolies in this pandemic."

I wouldn't.

Costa Rica will launch a voluntary patent pool later this month. Its president, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, said at the World Health Organization last week: “The pandemic attacks the same in each country regardless of whether you have the resources or not. It attacks people around the world in the same way,.

“Only together with multilateralism, with that sort of leadership, can we defeat coronavirus, not with nationalism and being selfish. It is the time for solidarity. It is the time to work together to show humanity the best that we are made of, the opportunity to show our brotherhood as a whole.”

[...]

Wellcome published a poll on Sunday of 2,000 people in the UK which found 96% supported the idea that national governments should work together to ensure that treatments and vaccines can be manufactured in as many countries as possible and distributed globally to everyone who needs them.

And those people don't run anything other than their own households.

“We have not been included in these discussions and have limited understanding of what exactly is being proposed, and how it is different from the various institutions already facilitating sharing of data, know-how” and intellectual property, [the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations (IFPMA)] said in a statement.

“Voluntary patent pools already exist and many companies are already exploring collaborations and voluntary licenses.”

[...]

“The creation of yet another new platform appears unneeded and would direct resources and energy away from key objectives. We have never needed innovation so much as now and this is probably the worst possible time to weaken intellectual property,” it said.

In other words, let us volunteer; don't regulate us.

The drugmaker Sanofi provoked outrage in its home country of France this week when its CEO, Paul Hudson, told Bloomberg News that the U.S. will get the vaccine first because the U.S. government provided funding for its development.

[...]

“We have manufacturing capacity in the U.S., Europe and all other main regions,” the company said. “The U.S. production will be mainly for the U.S. and the rest of the manufacturing capacity will cover Europe and the rest of the world.”

[...]

One of the potential vaccines that could be ready first, with the first doses as early as September, is being developed by Oxford University in the United Kingdom.

Adrian Hill, director of the Oxford institute working on the vaccine, said Wednesday during the Duke forum that the U.K. government has already spoken to the university about getting priority for the doses of the vaccine.

“We're being told in the U.K. that we've had a lot of U.K. government money, we have, the U.K. would like some doses, soon please,” Hill said. “That's going to be the response everywhere, how do you cut a deal?”

[...]

Of the eight potential vaccines that have entered clinical trials, according to the WHO, four are in China, which would pose an even greater diplomatic challenge for U.S. access compared to close U.S. allies like the U.K. Another of the eight is the Oxford vaccine and three others are developed by U.S. companies: Moderna, Inovio and Pfizer, though Pfizer is also working with the German biotech firm BioNTech.

[...]

Three global health experts, Thomas Bollyky, Lawrence Gostin and Margaret Hamburg, wrote an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association this month to warn that in the 2009 flu pandemic “wealthy nations bought virtually all vaccine supplies.”

Which is what they'll do this time, as well.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told an Israeli journalist on Wednesday that, “We’ll figure out the model for distribution when the time comes.”

  The Hill

That time has come. This attitude of waiting until we're forced to do something is why we're in the situation we are now.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

How to make a mint off a pandemic

The media has mostly focused on individuals who have taken advantage of the market for now-scarce medical and hygiene supplies to hoard masks and hand sanitizer and resell them at higher prices. But the largest voices in the health care industry stand to gain from billions of dollars in emergency spending on the pandemic, as do the bankers and investors who invest in health care companies.

[...]

In recent weeks, investment bankers have pressed health care companies on the front lines of fighting the novel coronavirus, including drug firms developing experimental treatments and medical supply firms, to consider ways that they can profit from the crisis.

[...]

In some cases, bankers received sharp rebukes from health care executives; in others, executives joked about using the attention on Covid-19 to dodge public pressure on the opioid crisis.

Gilead Sciences, the company producing remdesivir, the most promising drug to treat Covid-19 symptoms, is one such firm facing investor pressure.

Remdesivir is an antiviral that began development as a treatment for dengue, West Nile virus, and Zika, as well as MERS and SARS. The World Health Organization has said there is “only one drug right now that we think may have real efficacy in treating coronavirus symptoms” — namely, remdesivir.

The drug, though developed in partnership with the University of Alabama through a grant from the federal government’s National Institutes of Health, is patented by Gilead Sciences, a major pharmaceutical company based in California.

  The Intercept

Over the years there have been numerous drugs and other invetions either funded by the government or actually developed by the government and given to private companies to manufacture. They profit. We pay.

The firm has faced sharp criticism in the past for its pricing practices. It previously charged $84,000 for a yearlong supply of its hepatitis C treatment, which was also developed with government research support. Remdesivir is estimated to produce a one-time revenue of $2.5 billion.

[...]

Johanna Mercier, executive vice president of Gilead, noted that the company is currently donating products and “manufacturing at risk and increasing our capacity” to do its best to find a solution to the pandemic. The company at the moment is focused, she said, primarily on “patient access” and “government access” for remdesivir.

“Commercial opportunity,” Mercier added, “might come if this becomes a seasonal disease or stockpiling comes into play, but that’s much later down the line.”

Sure. Is Gilead a corporation? Does it have a board of directors?

Steve Collis, president and chief executive of AmerisourceBergen, noted that his company has been actively involved in efforts to push back against political demands to limit the price of pharmaceutical products.

Collis said that he was recently at a dinner with other pharmaceutical firms involved with developing “vaccines for the coronavirus” and was reminded that the U.S. firms, operating under limited drug price intervention, were among the industry leaders — a claim that has been disputed by experts who note that lack of regulation in the drug industry has led to few investments in viral treatments, which are seen as less lucrative. Leading firms developing a vaccine for Covid-19 are based in Germany, China, and Japan, countries with high levels of government influence in the pharmaceutical industry.

[...]

“We can’t say too much,” Collis responded. But the executive hinted that his company is using its crucial role in responding to the pandemic crisis as leverage in [opioid lawsuits] settlement negotiations. “I would say that this crisis, the coronavirus crisis, actually highlights a lot of what we’ve been saying, how important it is for us to be very strong financial companies and to have strong cash flow ability to invest in our business and to continue to grow our business and our relationship with our customers,” Collis said.

[...]

MARKET PRESSURE has encouraged large health care firms to spend billions of dollars on stock buybacks and lobbying, rather than research and development.

[...]

In Spain, the government seized control of private health care providers, including privately run hospitals, to manage the demand for treatment for patients with Covid-19.

But pharmaceutical interests in the U.S. have a large degree of political power. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar previously served as president of the U.S. division of drug giant Eli Lilly and on the board of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, a drug lobby group.

During a congressional hearing last month, Azar rejected the notion that any vaccine or treatment for Covid-19 should be set at an affordable price. “We would want to ensure that we work to make it affordable, but we can’t control that price because we need the private sector to invest,” said Azar. “The priority is to get vaccines and therapeutics. Price controls won’t get us there.”

Because of human scum like him and other corporate and finance industry assholes.

The initial $8.3 billion coronavirus spending bill passed in early March to provide financial support for research into vaccines and other drug treatments contained a provision that prevents the government from delaying the introduction of any new pharmaceutical to address the crisis over affordability concerns. The legislative text was shaped, according to reports, by industry lobbyists.

Always is.

As The Intercept previously reported, Joe Grogan, a key White House domestic policy adviser now serving on Donald Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force, previously served as a lobbyist for Gilead Sciences.

[...]

Drug companies often eschew vaccine development because of the limited profit potential for a one-time treatment. Testing kit companies and other medical supply firms have few market incentives for domestic production, especially scaling up an entire factory for short-term use.

Free market capitalism at its finest. This is why we need governments.

Last Friday, [Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich.] circulated a letter signed by other House Democrats that called for the government to take charge in producing ventilators, N95 respirators, and other critical supplies facing shortages.

I bet it got exactly zero Republican signatures.

The once inconceivable policy was endorsed on Wednesday when Trump unveiled a plan to invoke the Defense Production Act to compel private firms to produce needed supplies during the crisis. The law, notably, allows the president to set a price ceiling for critical goods used in an emergency.

He essentially said he COULD do that, and that he didn't think it was necessary.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump's HHS Secretary was a Big Pharma lobbyist

So, naturally, he sees the coronavirus pandemic as a money-maker.

ALEX AZAR, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, admitted Wednesday that a vaccine for the coronavirus might not be affordable for all Americans. “We can’t control that price,” Azar told Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., during a congressional hearing about the virus, which has been spreading throughout the world and is widely expected to become a serious public health issue in the United States.

After a wave of criticism from Democrats, Azar walked the comment back the next day, saying that he would ensure public access to a vaccine for the virus known as Covid-19 if one should be developed. But Azar, who served as the top lobbyist for Eli Lilly before becoming president of the drug company’s U.S. operations in 2012 and the secretary of Health and Human Services in 2018, knows of what he unthinkingly speaks. [...] And to the extent that Azar and the other businessmen who make up the majority of the president’s task force on the coronavirus have any experience with pharmaceuticals, one of the most profitable sectors of the economy, it’s been making money off the system that keeps them out of reach [for America's poor].

In the case of Azar, who earned nearly $2 million during his last year at Lilly, that profit came at the expense of the people who needed the drugs, according to a lawsuit filed in 2017. While Azar was leading the pharmaceutical giant, the cost of its drugs went up significantly. In particular, insulin sold by the company more than doubled in price. According to the suit, which also names Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, Eli Lilly engaged in a scheme to artificially inflate the price of its drug, leaving some diabetic people unable to pay the cost and forced to use expired insulin or none at all.

For another task force member, the profits could come from the coronavirus itself. Joseph Grogan was a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences before he joined the Trump administration as director of the Domestic Policy Council and led the Drug Pricing and Innovation Work Group. On Wednesday, after Gilead announced that it would be starting two clinical trials of an antiviral drug that could be used to treat the virus, the company’s stock price surged.

[...]

President Trump has fired many of the people who actually know how to coordinate government responses to epidemics. As Laurie Garrett reported in January, the president shut down the National Security Council’s global health security unit and cut $15 billion in national health spending, including funding for the management of infectious global diseases at the CDC, DHS, and HHS. At the CDC, the funding cuts to the global health section were so severe, Garrett wrote, that “the number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10.”

[...]

Although Grogan and his friends may have a lot to gain from his participation on the task force, it is not clear what expertise he and most of the others serving on the group bring to it. Of the task force’s 16 members — 17, if you include Vice President Mike Pence, who is heading the effort — only four have any training in science or medicine.

  The Intercept

Well, when you're goal is to make money for yourself and your friends, science and medicine aren't particularly useful training.

The others mostly hail from the business world, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, an investment banker who was sued for asset stripping; Ken Cuccinelli, a lawyer and self-described “opponent of homosexuality” now serving as acting deputy secretary of homeland security; and Christopher Liddell, a former executive at Microsoft and General Motors, who worked with Jared Kushner on the modernization of federal IT systems before directing the country’s response to what may be the biggest public health crisis in over a century.

I'm sure they'll do a heck-of-a job.

Vice President Pence also named Larry Kudlow to the task force on Thursday. Kudlow, a top economic advisor to Trump who used to work for Bear Stearns, went on Fox Business to reassure the American public that reports of increasing coronavirus infections around the world don’t necessarily mean “that this thing is going to skyrocket in North America.” Kudlow then encouraged everyone to keep investing, saying, “Stocks look pretty cheap to me.”

Jesus wept.

On Thursday, Deborah Birx, a physician who has served as the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator since 2014, was named as the White House coronavirus response coordinator, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams was added to the task force. Their appointments came after Bernie Sanders slammed Trump for putting “political cronies, not scientists” in charge of the government response to the virus.

Do you suppose they'll get a say in anything?