Pharma Bulls Have Turned into Pharma Wolves. American-Style Fascism Sets in: Meet Pharmafornia

Commiefornia Becomes Pharmafornia. Newsom is blurring the lines in a manner that Mussolini would approve. Not that it's my concern, but mainstream media stands to lose billions in advertising revenue.

Insulin price-hikes are symptomatic of the greater problem of drug price gouging of the US public and taxpayer by Pharma. Newsom’s move is the CA government joining in the profiteering, and it is not the answer.

The headlines herald “Millions stand to benefit from Newsom’s promise to get in the insulin game” (Opinion (yahoo.com)), yet Newsom’s not interested in what caused the diabetes epidemic.

Commiefornia has unseated New Jersey and now can boast it is the state with the largest population of kids with autism, according to the latest numbers from the CDC.

Of course, now Pharma sees the ASD pandemic as a new market for Pharmaceuticals.

Now, the entire pharmaceutical market is open for government backing via the generics backdoor.

I was banned in 2015 after my first - and only - article on Daily Kos. (Oddly, the article is still there, I’m just not allowed to edit it, or add more articles). In that article, I wrote:

“I’ll say it first: we no longer live in a democracy. We live in a fascist Pharmatopic Republic.”

I meant it. And I outlined all the ways that Pharma was breaking the rules - or re-writing them - so they could do things that were previously illegal and immoral - especially highlighting the vaccine sector.

From time to time, about once a year, as my predictions come true, I get a phone call from people who tell me how prescient the “Pharma Bulls” article was. I actually wrote it in response to some pablum article written by Clinton-era economic genius Robert Reich, who, after helping to turn the world’s largest deficit in history at the time into the world’s largest surplus, has since slid so far into socialist/communist left he tweets nearly daily how the rich should just give their wealth to those who have less. Through a government-mediated process, of course, call tax-the-rich.

Reich argues one day that the solution to the missing workforce is that corporations should just pay everyone more, and the next day calls for massive increases in taxation on corporations because CEOs make tons of money and get bonuses. I agree that during hard times when people are being laid off, it should look bad to all when CEOs rake in millions of dollars (as in the pension-raiding scandal a decade ago).

But liberals like Reich have not figured out that you can’t take water from the same well twice. So now they want the government to back massively profitable pharmaceutical initiatives - as if the already top-turvy pro-industry regulatory system is not bad enough.

Right now, all eyes are on the big banks… under the “too big to fail (TBTF)” argument. The banks, of course, expect that the Fed will bail out their customers up to $250,000 deposits, as well as themselves. But again, who will replenish the well with Biden’s Treasury Secretary reporting a planned 6-trillion-dollar deficit spending budget without batting an eye, without first accounting for the trillions of dollars the US government keeps losing - and no one knows where it goes?

And Biden’s budget will shore up clean energy - which I’m all for since the prospect of invading countries for oil turns my stomach. The carbon emissions narrative, however, falls apart when one factors in the carbon production by the energy spent transitioning society off oil (not likely to happen).

So the madness of “inject the kids with mRNA” King Gavin includes all-electric cards, yet no one knows how so many E-cars are going to be built, or even if there are enough mineral resources to create enough batteries. An entire shipload of E-cars set themselves alight when saltwater from the ocean splashed onto them (oops). One wonder while the lights might be on over there is Lefty Land, is anyone at home?

Government-Sponsored Pharmaceutical Profits Are Upon Us

The Affordable Insulin Now Act is a temporary band-aid that fails to cap the costs. The bill reads:

“This bill limits cost-sharing for insulin under private health insurance and the Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Specifically, the bill caps cost-sharing under private health insurance for a month's supply of selected insulin products at $35 or 25% of a plan's negotiated price (after any price concessions), whichever is less, beginning in 2023.

The bill caps cost-sharing under the Medicare prescription drug benefit for a month's supply of covered insulin products at (1) $35 between October 1, 2022, and January 1, 2024; and (2) $35 or 25% of a plan's negotiated price, whichever is less, beginning in 2024. The bill provides funds for FY2022 for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to implement the bill.

Currently, the CMS is testing a voluntary model under the Medicare prescription drug benefit (the Part D Senior Savings Model) in which the copayment for a month's supply of insulin is capped at $35 through participating plans. The model is set to expire on December 31, 2025.”

Insulin price-hikes are symptomatic of the greater problem of drug price gouging of the US public and taxpayer by Pharma. Newsom’s move is the CA government joining in the profiteering, and it is not the answer.

Newsom plans to have the State of California enter the pharmaceutical sector as a supplier of “Cali Insulin”. He’s spending $100 million on the plan - $50 million to create a new state-run insulin-producing facility. California is entering the market specifically to compete with companies like Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi, who certainly have raised insulin prices - so much so that Colorado placed a $30/dose cap on synthetic insulin.

I’m not saying low prices on insulin are bad. I’m saying that the natural downstream consequences of these “private-public partnerships” have to be thought through. Coupla points to ponder:

1. What could possibly go wrong? California is a state where the rich have been chased out. The golden geese they want to tax for the free stuff have all left, and apparently, it’s perfectly legal to walk into someone’s company or home and take whatever appeals to you, in the name of #DefundThePolice and #Equity? What could possibly go wrong with this plan for CA to make its own insulin?

2. Does anyone else recognize that when the state goes commercial, you’ve crossed the line into American-style fascism? California is rushing headlong into pharmafascism beyond vaccines.

3. Newsom’s program has the government contracting $50M for a facility and $50 for production. The lucky winner has been preselected: It’s a “non-profit” called Civica Rx. Civica Rx is a weird corporation, funded by philanthropists, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and 18 of its member organizations. Newsom’s “partnership agreement” with Civica Rx likely breaks CA laws governing open contract procedures. According to the New York Times, Civica Rx is

   “a nonprofit that is already selling drugs used in hospitals to health systems around the country. The insurers and Civica declined to name specific drugs that would be targeted, saying they did not want to tip off potential business rivals. They said that they would start with seven to 10 products that have little competition and that some initial products could become available by early 2022.”

4. $30 per dose is still price gouging This 2018 study estimated that one vial of human insulin costs $2.28-$3.42 to produce. A dose of analog insulin costs $3.69-$6.16 to produce. These numbers mean that year’s supply of human insulin should cost at most $80 per patient, and analog insulin could cost $150 per patient per year; at $30 per day, insulin profit becomes about $10,000 per patient - and annual profit (low-end estimate) of $65M.

   Remember, with American-style pharmafascism, there is no cost to marketing; the government does that for you. You might even swing a mandate bonanza. Plus, you get to compete with for-profit companies for major market sectors. One would think that will all of this advantage, Civica Rx would take over 100% of the insulin market. They are only limited by production capacity: currently, they expect to be able to supply 30% of the insulin needed by the US in their Virginia facility. Civica’s Sterile Injectable Manufacturing Facility, Virginia was underwritten by the Commonwealth to the tune of $5.7M.

   With CA giving them a new facility and underwriting production costs, and their still-massive profits, surely they will be able to dominate the insulin market across the US.

5. (This is the most important point to ponder.) There’s clearly an argument against the even worse price gouging of $300 per dose, and even for price caps. The American Diabetes Association estimates that 4,000 people receive new diagnoses of diabetes every day. But what would happen if Newsom spent $100M on programs to educate and incentivize people to not eat high-fructose corn-syrup products, wanton amounts of glyphosate-infused sugar and carbs, add a little exercise after each meal, and introduced the revolutionary concept of portion control? What if Blue Cross Blue Shield and its 18 member organizations took to the airwaves and worked with natural and integrative health gurus around the country to reduce the incidence of diabetes in the US?

6. If you’re diabetic in California, will you trust Newsom’s government insulin? Who remembers government cheese?

7. How long before Pharmafornia passes mandates for use of state-produced insulin?

8. How long before Pharmafornia jumps into other sectors of the pharmaceutical industry?

9. What will Pharmafornia do with its newfound profit stream… and is it ok for a state government to turn a net profit for a non-profit? (Let’s not pretend Pharmaceuticals are an open market though!) As mentioned, the non-profit Civica Rx will re-invest profits into developing other pharmaceuticals.

10. What other industries other than pharmaceuticals will Pharmafornia jump into?

    The American “mainstream” media has not caught on to how wacky this plan is and where it will likely lead, and it’s puzzling: Their profits from ad revenues from Pharma are at risk. But more importantly, we need a clear vision for a healthy future that excludes machinations of fascism leading to endless profit.

    We need integrative health.

    Related:

The “mainstream” media in the US has not caught on to the long-term consequences state-sponsored for-profit not-for-profit pharmafascism.

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