https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8jaxIFAz3s
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
'No One Should Be Fooled': Trump Executive Order on Drug Prices Denounced as Election Year Charade
Latest move called nothing more than a public relations stunt "intended to distract Americans from the president's broken promises to seniors and the 200,000 Americans that have died from the coronavirus as a result of his failed Covid-19 response policies."
by
Jon Queally, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/14/no-one-should-be-fooled-trump-executive-order-drug-prices-denounced-election-year
Advocates for lowering drug prices in the United States are raising alarm over an executive order issued by President Donald Trump on Sunday that the White House purports would challenge the nation's pharmaceutical industry but which critics say is just an election year ploy to make it look like the president is finally following through on a 2016 campaign promise he has neglected throughout his term.
"The proposed executive order would appear to be of limited immediate effect," reported the Wall Street Journal. "Experts see the order as the administration’s effort to show it is taking steps to lower drug pricing, as the president seeks reelection. Drug-pricing experts say that the best way to lower prices under Medicare is to grant the agency the legal authority to directly negotiate prices with drug companies. This measure wouldn't do that."The executive order itself would require that the secretary of Health and Human Services to "immediately" explore implementing a payment model for Medicare to pay "no more than the most-favored-nation price," which means the lowest price paid in other developed countries, for specific "high-cost" prescription medicines. While Trump celebrated the order as a far-reaching game-changer, experts said the move will likely have any little if any meaningful impact.
While much of the reporting on Trump's order focused on how "controversial" the bill was due to its cold reception by the powerful drug industry, Peter Maybarduk, director of the global access to medicines program at Public Citizen, was critical of the order precisely because Big Pharma will likely walk all over it by voicing the kind of challenges it issued upon Trump's announcement on Sunday.
According to Maybarduk, "European countries pay less because they negotiate and set basic disciplines on the prices that drug monopolists can charge. A direct way to lower medicine prices in the U.S. would be to give Medicare negotiation powers, as candidate Trump pledged back in 2016."
As NPR reports:
The new executive order repeals the original and expands the drugs covered by Trump's proposed "most favored nations" pricing scheme to include both Medicare Part B and Medicare Part D. The idea is that Medicare would refuse to pay more for drugs than the lower prices paid by other developed nations.
"It is unacceptable that Americans pay more for the exact same drugs, often made in the exact same places," the executive order declares.
Maybarduk warned in a tweet that the pharmaceutical industry "isn’t going to suddenly start playing ball. Pharma will challenge rules that come out of the order. Also, the EO indicates what USG should pay, but does not appear to regulate what corporations charge."
"This is a massive win for the drug industry and another broken drug pricing promise by President Trump," said Eli Zupnick, spokesman for Accountable Pharma, in a statement Monday. "The drug industry is going to act like this weak executive order is a horrific injustice but the reality is that they were wildly successful in lobbying their former colleagues in the Administration to delay and water down this executive order to the point where it almost certainly won't save a single American a single penny on their prescription drugs."
Other critics of the move said it reeked of election year politics, with some suggesting that it should do more to expose how little Trump has done on the issue—and the low priority its been given by an administration that has shown little regard to protecting public health or improving access to more affordable medications.
"President Trump's executive order on drug pricing does not by itself do anything. It has to be followed up by regulations, which will take time," warned Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation in a tweet. "Trump has a history of bold talk on drug prices, only to pull back when it comes to putting actual regulations in place."
Lower Drug Prices Now, an advocacy coalition of national and state-level affiliates which calls for lower and affordable drug prices for all Americans, warned that Trump's order should be seen for the reelection ploy by Trump that it is.
"No one should be fooled by President Trump's latest charade on drug prices," the group said in a Sunday night statement. "After three and a half years of endless empty rhetoric, Americans have seen their prescription drug prices go up, not down."
The group called the order nothing more than a public relations stunt "intended to distract Americans from the president's broken promises to seniors and the 200,000 Americans that have died from the coronavirus as a result of his failed Covid-19 response policies."
According to Axios' reporter Caitlin Owens, "given that he's had four years already to act on what was also a big issue in 2016, there's plenty of reason to be skeptical of this ever translating into official policy."
In December of last year, House Democrats passed H.R. 3, The Elijah Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, by a vote of 230 to 192. While Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to take it up in the Senate—and received no support from the Trump White House—the legislation would have led to dramatically lower prescription drug costs nationwide and much further-reaching protections and benefits for Americans overall.
"A serious proposal to lower RX prices & take away drug corporations' monopoly power to charge whatever they want requires coordinated action from Congress—like the Medicare negotiations bill that President Trump rejected last year which included international price indexing," said Lower Drug Prices Now in its statement, referring to HR 3. "It's clear that this President is more interested in photo ops than passing laws to take on Big Pharma."
Peter Morley, a patient advocate, similarly met the announcement by the Trump administration with both anger and heartbreak.
"A PR stunt designed as an executive order on the affordability of prescription drugs does NOTHING," Morley tweeted. "Critical and chronically ill patients can still die by the lack of accessibility. It's just a game to this Administration. Sickening, LITERALLY."
Representative Govt On The Brink, ICE Whistleblower Alleges Forced Hysterectomies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QP_G7WBUSw
To Counter 'Misinformation Flowing From the Highest Levels,' ACLU Launches Voter Preparedness Campaign
"We're calling on voters to make a plan, request their ballot where they can, and to encourage their friends to do the same."
by
Lisa Newcomb, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/14/counter-misinformation-flowing-highest-levels-aclu-launches-voter-preparedness
With 50 days until the November general election, the ACLU Monday announced a voter education and outreach campaign.
"In an unprecedented election year, rife with misinformation flowing from the highest levels, voters must be educated on how, where, and when they can vote, and how to advocate for their constitutional right to cast a ballot when obstacles are thrown in their way," Rebecca Lowell Edwards, chief communications officer for the ACLU, said in a statement Monday.
"As politicians play politics with people's lives instead of enacting common sense measures—including expanded early voting periods and universal access to vote by mail—the ACLU has been at the frontlines to protect and expand the right to vote for all eligible voters," Lowell Edwards said. "We're calling on voters to make a plan, request their ballot where they can, and to encourage their friends to do the same."
The campaign, called "Let People Vote," features an online "educational tool" with state-by-state guidelines for voter registration, voting deadlines, and mail-in voting options. It will also feature voting-themed face masks and 'At The Polls,' a weekly podcast mini-series on the top questions regarding the 2020 election, including what election night will look like and the state of the USPS, according to a press release from the ACLU Monday.
In addition to promoting the campaign through its traditional outreach channels, the ACLU said in a press release Monday that "the tool will be amplified through a six-figure digital ad spend, an expansive email and text program, and beyond the ACLU's network through its artists and celebrity partners with weekly content through Election Day."
"The organization's corporate partners—including Levi's, Ben & Jerry's, Everlane, Snap, NorthFace, Outdoor Voices, Seventh Generation, Lush, COS, Madewell, and Twitter, among others—will educate their customers, followers, employees, and the general public by sharing the tool in a concerted push," the ACLU added.
Bye Bye, Big Oil? BP Admits Demand May Have Already Peaked, Predicts Growth of Renewable Energy
Welcoming news that oil demand may never recover to pre-pandemic levels, Greenpeace noted that "a #GreenRecovery will hasten its demise."
by
Jessica Corbett, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/14/bye-bye-big-oil-bp-admits-demand-may-have-already-peaked-predicts-growth-renewable
As communities worldwide face off against and file suit over the devastating impacts of a climate crisis notably driven by fossil fuel giants, BP on Monday gave just the latest signal that the dirty energy industry is dying—admitting that global demand for oil may have already peaked while projecting significant growth in renewables over the next few decades.
The new edition of BP's annual Energy Outlook features three potential transition scenarios to 2050, the year by which the British firm says it intends to deliver its net-zero ambition. The forecast, Reuters reported, "underpins chief executive Bernard Looney's new strategy to 'reinvent' the 111-year old oil and gas company by shifting renewables and power."
The outlook comes several months into the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed over 925,000 people, sickened more than 29 million, and wreaked havoc on the global economy. In the midst of the related public health and economic crises, residents of the western U.S. are battling historic wildfires while those on the Gulf Coast brace for Hurricane Sally's arrival.
Scientists have explained that the raging fires and devastation from hurricanes are connected to human-caused climate change, and warned that as global temperatures continue to rise, humanity will face more danger and destruction. Experts have also emphasized that despite a brief dip in emissions during Covid-19 lockdowns earlier this year, the climate crisis hasn't slowed or stopped due to the pandemic.
As governments across the globe grapple with the consequences of the climate and public health emergencies—along with calls to build back better and rapidly phase out fossil fuels—the BP report "in effect sounds a death-knell for the growth of global oil demand after two of the report's three energy scenarios for the next 30 years found that demand reached a peak in 2019," according to The Guardian.
In BP's least aggressive scenario, considering the possibility of less ambitious government policies that aim to meet the global temperature goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord, "oil demand plateaus at similar levels seen in 2019 through the 2020s before declining from 2035," the newspaper added.
BP chief economist Spencer Dale told reporters Monday that the transition to clean energy "would be an unprecedented event," noting that "never in modern history has the demand for any traded fuel declined in absolute terms." Meanwhile, he said, "the share of renewable energy grows more quickly than any fuel ever seen in history."
"The BP Energy Outlook is invaluable in helping us better understand the changing energy landscape and it was instrumental in helping us develop our new strategy," Looney said in a statement Monday. "Even as the pandemic has dramatically reduced global carbon emissions, the world remains on an unsustainable path."
"However, the analysis in the outlook shows that, with decisive policy measures and more low carbon choices from both companies and consumers, the energy transition still can be delivered," the CEO added. "It is one of the reasons I remain optimistic about the future and I hope readers will find the report helpful as we all try to make a difference."
BP's report follows a July analysis from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), a U.S.-based policy research and advocacy group, which found that the British corporation and other fossil fuel firms such as ExxonMobil "are racking up debt to maintain their shareholder payments and sustain their image as sound investments."
"Oil and gas companies are also writing down and selling off their assets at heavily discounted prices," CIEL noted, "in a move that reflects a desperate need for cash and growing skepticism about the future value of fossil fuels."
Though the oil major is purportedly charting a new path, BP has been named in several of over 20 lawsuits that local and state governments in the U.S. have filed in the past few years, seeking to make fossil fuel giants pay for polluting the planet and take the burden off taxpayers to cover the costs of consequences like sea-level rise.
"The climate crisis Big Oil caused is engulfing the nation, and it is costing communities billions of dollars," Richard Wiles of the Center for Climate Integrity said last week, as Delaware's attorney general sued 31 fossil fuel companies including BP. "It is clear that Big Oil is facing its 'Big Tobacco moment,' and accountability is coming for them."
RFK's Ripple Of Hope Still Matters Today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BApxEXqQBxI&ab_channel=act.tv
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