As Long As Congress Tolerates Bribery, Drug Prices Will Remain Outrageously High

Republicans and the Blue Dog, New Dems and corporate whores from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- and their allies in the establishment media-- like nothing better than to paint the progressive agenda as "radical," "extreme" and "outside the mainstream." Mention anything from the Bernie or Elizabeth Warren playbooks and the DCCC and their coterie of approved political operatives write you off immediately.

The DCCC-- run by one repulsive conservative corporatist after another, from Rahm Emanuel to this year's shithead loser, Sean Patrick Maloney-- is owned and operated by Wall Street and consistently rejects progressive candidates and progressive proposals to deal with the problems that most plague working class Americans... which helps explain why the Democratic Party can no longer depend on the support of the working class. The DCCC and its allies will never do anything to endanger its lucrative relationships with the oligarchs and multimillionaires who finance it, very much in line with the NRCC.

Today Data for Progress, an establishment Democratic polling firm, released a new poll about two extremely popular socialist health care solutions, each of which the DCCC advises its candidates to avoid, or at least to dance around without making any firm commitments.

Sabrina Jacobs and Ahmad Ali wrote that "The researchers who pioneered the modern usage of insulin for treating diabetes sold the patent for $1 in hopes that its production would someday mean affordable and accessible treatment for everyone. Today, the cost of insulin in the United States is so unreasonably high that diabetes patients often ration insulin or face the difficult choice between insulin or other necessities of life There are 37 million Americans today living with diabetes; millions of them are treated with insulin therapy. Diabetes left untreated can eventually lead to complications such as blindness, nerve damage and kidney damage."

As a party, Democrats pretend to favor capping the price but, outside of the Copngressional Progressive Caucus, are unwilling to invest any political capital to get it done for real. New polling, reports Data for Progress, "finds a bipartisan and overwhelming majority of voters support such a measure. This support includes Republicans by +77 points, Independents by +73 points, and Democrats by +81 points. Look at these results carefully. Democrats use these numbers to beat up on Republicans but not to discipline their own anti-healthcare conservatives like Ed Case (Blue Dog-HI), Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR), Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA) and Lou Correa (Blue Dog-CA). And now the DCCC is supporting anti-healthcare candidates like California corrupt conservative Assemblymen Adam Gray and Rudy Salas.

They also found that a very wide majority of voters-- across party lines-- support giving Medicare the power to negotiate with companies to lower prescription drug prices. Eighty-three percent of voters support such a proposal; only 8 percent oppose. Only 11% of Republicans say that Medicare should not be allowed to negotiate lower drug prices, yet the Republicans in Congress-- and the shitheads at the DCCC-- are living in their own world, which helps explain why most people hate both parties and hate Congress.

Jamie McLeod-Skinner is the progressive running for the Oregon seat occupied by corrupt Blue Dog Kurt Schrader. This evening, she pointed out to me that "By voting against lowering prescription drug prices to please his Big Pharma donors and promoting legislation that benefits them instead of our working families, Schrader is betraying all Americans who desperately need access to affordable prescription drugs. And, he’s doing this on top of the struggles of the pandemic, which have exacerbated health care inequities in the US. I don’t take any corporate PAC money, and that includes money from Big Pharma. I think it’s unconscionable to benefit from other people’s pain, but based on the fact that he’s taken over $650,000 from Big Pharma, it’s clear he’d rather take the money than do what’s right."