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How 2 Republicans & 1 Conserv. Dem Wasted Half Billion in Medicare Funds (Deficit Posturing is Shit)
JeffEng16 22 Reviews 2087 reads
posted

Amgen is a multibillion dollar multinational Fortune 500 biopharmaceutical company in Thousand Oaks, California. By far their biggest seller is Enbrel, an injectable TNF blocker used for a gamut of arthritis conditions including RA, and JIA, and ankylosing spondylitis.

2 weeks prior to the deficit agreement, Amgen pled guilty to major fraud charges paying criminal and civil fines that totaled $762 million. This settlement set a record in US History for the highest fine paid by a biotech company. Amgen has close ties to three Senators who are major recipients of its bribe money, McConnell, Hatch, and Baucus.  So after it pled guilty to fraud where no one did prison time, per corporate usual, tucked deep into Section 632 of the Fiscal Cliff bill was a provision that allows Amgen to sell it's new dialysis drug Sensipar for two years with no CMS price controls at the cost to Medicare of one half billion dollars.

The comment from Hatch's staff to the NYT was "we screwed up."  “Sometimes when you try to do too much and too quickly, you screw up,” said Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for Mr. Hatch."

Yet you'll never hear any mention as the GOP rails non-stop about controlling the deficit.

Among Amgen's 74 lobbyists are former Chiefs of Staff to Hatch and Baucus.

"Amgen’s employees and political action committee have distributed nearly $5 million in contributions to political candidates and committees since 2007, including $67,750 to Mr. Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman, and $59,000 to Mr. Hatch, the committee’s ranking Republican. They gave an additional $73,000 to Mr. McConnell, some of it at a fund-raising event for him that it helped sponsor in December while the debate over the fiscal legislation was under way. More than $141,000 has also gone from Amgen employees to President Obama’s campaigns."

Amgen has a little more lobbying clout than you do.  They employ 74 lobbyists who have close bribery ties to the Hill and yes, the White House.  They contribute most heavily to the Senate Finance Committee members like Baucus.  This was the 2nd 2 year delay for price controls for Amgen.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/us/medicare-pricing-delay-is-political-win-for-amgen-drug-maker.html?ref=us


Related Link: Fiscal Footnote: Big Senate Gift to Drug Maker

mattradd217 reads

Perhaps it's being done and I just don't know it, but I'd like to see an online resource that shows which congressmen and senators sponsor which bills, and add amendments or provisions to them. And, I'd like to have the main stream media reporting more of these abuses, like the one you've pointed out!

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JeffEng16194 reads

There used to be a guy whose site I'll have to search for who ran a blog that did just that and also analyzed many of the arcane rules of the House and Senate.  When something like FISA (which got renewed last month with no notice from the media) he would cover the House and Senate in incredible detail including every move they made like a diary.  He stopped doing that a couple years ago.

There are a number of sites that track bills and each vote on the bill, but still don't uncover what can be buried deep in the bill like the huge break that was written expressly to help Amgen by Senators who were given a boatload of money by Amgen over the last few years.

I'm sure there are private newsletters that do what you want but there ought to be public sites.

Well known sites for tracking bills and who votes which way are:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/

http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/112/house/1/690

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php

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salonpas252 reads

....by members of congress and their congressional staffers.

Posted By: JeffEng16
There used to be a guy whose site I'll have to search for who ran a blog that did just that and also analyzed many of the arcane rules of the House and Senate.  When something like FISA (which got renewed last month with no notice from the media) he would cover the House and Senate in incredible detail including every move they made like a diary.  He stopped doing that a couple years ago.

There are a number of sites that track bills and each vote on the bill, but still don't uncover what can be buried deep in the bill like the huge break that was written expressly to help Amgen by Senators who were given a boatload of money by Amgen over the last few years.

I'm sure there are private newsletters that do what you want but there ought to be public sites.

Well known sites for tracking bills and who votes which way are:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/

http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/112/house/1/690

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php

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tonightoutcall211 reads

Term limits, they are more worried about being reelected then dont whats right for america. 6yr s for the senate 8 yrs for the house.

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no_email206 reads

Do the diabetics deserve no blame?

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marikod219 reads

drugs. Abbot Laboratories and Genzyme both make competing drugs and will benefit just like Amgen. Why is Amgen the bad guy here and not these companies?

       Further, the plan to change the Medicare pricing bundle for ESRD services came from the GAO and many experts in the field have criticized the GAO report as not being based on the best science. These oral drugs are super expensive but also super important if you are a renal patient. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to put patient care first until they figure out the best way to handle pricing here.

     Certainly that Amgen has many lobbyists, makes campaign contributions, and pleaded guilty to a criminal charge that had noting to do with this drug is about as relevant to this story as my dining at the Outback is to Mein’s reduced crime statistics. You could make the same charges about all big pharma.

      Finally, you took the ““Sometimes when you try to do too much and too quickly, you screw up” comment completely out of context. This was a mea cupa as you implied but was referring to the GAO report which treated all ESRD drugs alike but for this bill.

     There is a lot of pork in that bill but this one may be legitimate. Whether it is a "waste of funds" or a life saving measure fro some patients remains to be seen

      A poorly written article by the NY Times reporter and the caption of your post has almost no relation to what happened here.

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JeffEng16223 reads

and it was a collosal waste of funds. The paradigm here between  Amgen and perhaps other drug companies was provider client.  The poorly written article was your post Marikod.  Your analogy is equally pathetic.  More companies than Abbot and Genzyme are involved and more drugs than ESRD Rx's are implicated.  This provision was not necessary at all to get necessary medication to dialysis patients or ESRD patients as you imply. This was a gift to a panoply of pharmaceutical companies for cash delivered.  The lobbyists are the bagmen.

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