Who Wins with Health Care Reform?

[Barb135]

Looks like the pharmaceutical companies come out on top!!!   Here's part of an article I found this morning;

THE INFLUENCE GAME: Drug lobby's health care win

By ALAN FRAM (AP) – 6 hours ago

WASHINGTON — Chalk one up for the pharmaceutical lobby. The U.S. drug industry fended off price curbs and other hefty restrictions in President Barack Obama's health care law even as it prepares for plenty of new business when an estimated 32 million uninsured Americans gain health coverage.

To be sure, the law also levies taxes and imposes other costs on pharmaceutical companies, leaving its final impact on the industry's bottom line uncertain. A recent analysis by Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street firm, suggests the overhaul could mean "a manageable hit" of tens of billions of dollars over the coming decade while bolstering the value of drug-company stocks. Others expect profits, not losses, of the same magnitude.

Either way, pharmaceutical lobbyists won new federal policies they coveted and set a trajectory for long-term industry growth. Privately, several of them say their biggest triumph was heading off Democrats led by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who wanted even more money from their industry to finance the health care system's expansion.

"Pharma came out of this better than anyone else," said Ramsey Baghdadi, a Washington health policy analyst who projects a $30 billion, 10-year net gain for the industry. "I don't see how they could have done much better."

Costly brand-name biotech drugs won 12 years of protection against cheaper generic competitors, a boon for products that comprise 15 percent of pharmaceutical sales. The industry will have to provide 50 percent discounts beginning next year to Medicare beneficiaries in the "doughnut hole" gap in pharmaceutical coverage, but those price cuts plus gradually rising federal subsidies will mean more elderly people will purchase more drugs.

Lobbyists beat back proposals to allow importation of low-cost medicines and to have Medicare negotiate drug prices with companies. They also defeated efforts to require more industry rebates for the 9 million beneficiaries of both Medicare and Medicaid, and to bar brand-name drugmakers' payments to generic companies to delay the marketing of competitor products.
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That's just part of the article - you can find the rest at:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i9xePVcCb-63lXYhosvNsNyPV1XAD9EO55O80

Now we'll get to fight the insurance companies who insist that we buy generic drugs; only we won't be able to -- how nice is that for the drug makers!!!

[specialmom]

Barb, I had noticed what the pharma stocks did the day after the results of the health care vote came in.  I'm not a pharma industry hater as I am always waiting for the next life saving/changing medication and they have the best chances of producing that.  They are an economic force in our economy in their own right that provide income to a lot of American families.  But . . .   they have room to lose some of that profit and spend far too much on lobbying.  Also, what happened with the large corporations--------  did they lose tax breaks for prescription drug coverage?  

[ILADVOCATE]

It seemed from the beginning that  the health care reform bill was leaning towards requiring that people be insured, not so much the quality of care itself so that's not surprising. Generally the amount of power and influence and the level of political contributions a group has the more they will be favored in legislation.