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Optics are everything even if it means we nearly start trade wars with our largest allies or kick the can down the road on way overpriced drugs. Can't wait to vote for Booker come 2020.
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Bipartisan effort to speed approval cancer drugs for kids passes, 1 no vote in Senate
- Thread starter KSweeley
- Start date
Optics are everything even if it means we nearly start trade wars with our largest allies or kick the can down the road on way overpriced drugs. Can't wait to vote for Booker come 2020.
dynamitejim
Member
How is this measure, or the legislation it's attached to, a giveaway to Big Pharma exactly? Saying it does nothing to lower drug prices seems like a non-sequiter since that doesn't really have anything to do with the scope of the bill.
thewaffles
Member
I like Bernie, but the conclusion that he is the most popular lawmaker in the country from that poll is kind of flawed. On the favorable/unfavorable question, there are only 8 or 9 lawmakers to choose from. Granted, he's got the most favorable votes, but still, not a very big pool of choices. I mean, Kellyanne and Kushner are possible choices for that question.
What's the use of this shitty persecution complex? Like people already explained his reasons for making his vote and why he did so to those who couldn't see past or were only concerned with the optics of the situation and here you come with this whiny, defensive, greentext post that's only missing the >.
Maiden Voyage
Gold™ Member
He had a legit reason not to vote for it. People dislike him because of the primary.
Is that better?
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
Actually, the bill exists because that market isn't lucrative at all.
boiled goose
good with gravy
The fact that all Republicans voted for this should give people pause.
But the hatred for Bernie too strong.
It's a vote on ideological grounds. Sure.
But his main stance is that our political system should not have to compromise with outside corporate influence.
Compromise with corporate interests favors gop and hurts Democrats. But please continue.
The kamala Harris v Bernie primary is going to be a mess here on this forum.
But the hatred for Bernie too strong.
It's a vote on ideological grounds. Sure.
But his main stance is that our political system should not have to compromise with outside corporate influence.
Compromise with corporate interests favors gop and hurts Democrats. But please continue.
The kamala Harris v Bernie primary is going to be a mess here on this forum.
googleplex
Member
You are aware that people are free to be critical of and to down right disagree with positions Bernie Sanders takes right?
Jesus fuck.. some folk have turned Bernie into a Sacred Cow that can never be challenged without being labeled as
a corporatist/neo-liberal/shill.
BudokaiMR2
Member
I'd actually argue that it's the opposite and the ones missing the forest for the tree are the people dragging him for a harmless protest vote that allows him to at least send a message in regards to the bigger picture of how healthcare in the country is terrible and this will do nothing for a lot of children who can't afford the treatment in the first place.
Might just be me though.
That really isn't what's going on in this particular situation and I'm kind of sick of a bunch of people who don't really organize or do shit spending their most of their time here attempting to make everything about the primary.
Quit taking this shit so personally and making Off Topic your own weird imaginative neoliberal gulag.
Stuff like antibiotics and common painkillers aren't that bad price wise. It's the medications that are more specialized that cost a shit ton when compared to other countries.
lightskintwin
Banned
Bernie would handily win.
Your contribution is invaluable...
Yeah, they can, but time has shown that yeah - it usually is corporate money at the source of all this anti-Bernie crap.
On GAF?
DarkJediKnight
Member
Stuff like this is why I hope he never runs of President again. Regardless of the reason, imagine how the TV ads would play out. He'd get crushed!
Subpar Scrub
Banned
That's crazy. I'm in Aus and two weeks worth of high strength dosages cost me $7.55 yesterday. Plus a $30 doctor visit after my Medicare rebate. The medical system in the US would probably be the no.1 reason I'd feel uncomfortable about living there, and that's not getting into the people with bills totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars in cancer treatments and stuff.
Good for their corporate financiers
VendettaRed07
Member
This forum has an axe to grind with him and uses every opportunity to shit on the guy. Being opposed to how this place can be ridiculous some times is far away from making him out to be a "sacred cow".
Here we are in a thread about a bill that passed nearly unanimously that he voted against out of dissent for it having poison pills to appease republicans. The fuck does it matter. Why focus all the attention and energy on him? It doesn't make any sense. How about blaming republicans for needing their corporate buddies to get a cash out even when it's involving sick children for a change?..
There are plenty of reasons to legitimately criticize the guy, but too many desperately grasp at straws with anything related to him
just like trump got crushed by all the tv ads against him
The impression I get is that it weakens the regulatory barriers to selling newer meds to kids (and newer meds are generally more overpriced because there's less competition and not yet generic alternatives). Sometimes that tradeoff might be worth it, but if my impression is accurate than this bill does help pharma. And making meds affordable might save more lives than making new drugs that haven't been rigorously tested more accessible.
But it's also worth pointing out that he knew he wasn't making a deciding vote so he could have just cast the vote to spark this sort of conversation and would have possibly voted differently if his vote happened to matter, depending on how he felt about the tradeoff mentioned above.
dynamitejim
Member
Again. WTF does this bill have to do with that, exactly? Is Bernie going to vote against any bill tangentially related to health care if it doesn't somehow lower drug prices? If you're going to vote against things as some kind of knee-jerk, anti-corporate schtick, don't be offended when people call you out for it.
Maiden Voyage
Gold™ Member
I don't know that I'm taking the posts here personally, just poking fun at the people who are upset that Bernie held up the primary from going to Clinton. But you're right--I shouldn't have made fun of the primary. It's not really related.
Am I free to be critical of the posts that are critical of him or is it a one-way street?
No drugs are better than expensive drugs that save kids with cancer?
Drugs that will come to market anyway without congressional approval, but kids will die in the meantime unless they're fast tracked?
Doesn't seem to be the time or place for this nonsense if that's why.
Demoskinos
Member
And that is probably exactly why nobody wanted to vote No the optics on that do look bad. Most won't dig deeper than the headline.
Glass Rebel
Member
Ah, thanks a ton.
Tal Shiar Agent
Banned
So all Bernie needs is a foreign government to hack the elections for him next time.
This. In my understanding of the bill it doesn't have anything to do, at all, with the reasons why Bernie voted against it.
And there it is. Bernie used the bill to bring awareness to an issue not tied to it.
Not a good look when the bill deals with cancer medication for kids.
It's a protest vote more than anything that brings awareness to an issue. If people could stop reliving 2016 for a five seconds they might understand why someone would do that.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
The part about medication for children is not the main part of this bill, it is a rider. The main part of this bill deals with FDA regulations, and the main effect will be for the pharmaceutical industry to continue to be subsidised to develop drugs regardless of efficacy or demand.
Imagine there was a bill in front of you which would eliminate all pension, holiday, and sick-day requirements, but had a rider where child tax credits were expanded by 0.2%. Do you vote for it? I would hope not. Should people call you out for voting against child tax credits? No, that would be stupid.
dynamitejim
Member
I'm sorry, I don't buy it. It just makes him look like the purity troll his opponents cast him as. The bill gets rid of a bad regulation that stopped cancer drugs being trialed for kids and collects fees on drug and medical device makers to fund FDA review. The optics on this one do legitimately look bad for him.
ShadowKingpin
Member
Yeah, no. A little melodramatic there. The whole point of his vote was because that medicine wouldn't even be affordable to most. There has to be a law that lowers the price substantially, or else most families can't obtain it financially.
I'd just like to point out that we can't take it at face value when drug companies say their new drug fights cancer. If we knew for sure it was a safe and effective treatment, it'd already be approved and we would have enough data to draw that conclusion. Sometimes experimental drugs do deliver on their promise, but a lot of people here seem to take it as a given and that sort of thinking has gotten us into trouble in the past.
Take the latest opioid crisis for example. A big reason we're in this mess is because pharma lobbying convinced government and doctors that their new pain meds were less addictive. They weren't. Pharma just wanted to sell more drugs. And we said ok.
Take the latest opioid crisis for example. A big reason we're in this mess is because pharma lobbying convinced government and doctors that their new pain meds were less addictive. They weren't. Pharma just wanted to sell more drugs. And we said ok.
VendettaRed07
Member
And expensive drugs might as well be no drugs to the kids whose families can't afford them.
Pointing that out with a protest vote on a bill that passed nearly unanimously is hardly nonsense or a waste of time. He made a statement without stopping anything.
Also why is expensive drugs vs no drugs even a choice we should have to make. It just goes to show how fucked our politics are where the majority of the anger is apparenrtly targeted at the guy who doesn't like that rather than the shitty state of congress and our healthcare industry
T
Transhuman
Unconfirmed Member
Cancer and debt are all part of god's plan
This wasn't that bill though.
Please point me towards those services. I'd love to have a separate income for rent.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Right. It was, as I said, a bill which reinforces the current American pharmaceutical model and makes drugs more expensive - this was the main outcome of the bill. Drugs being more expensive kills thousands more people than speeding up paediatric drug development saves - I'm a healthcare economist, this is my job (I currently consult for a drug board on price-setting). This was a net harmful bill.
I have no doubt that if the paediatric reforms had been put forward as a separate piece of legislation, Sanders would have voted for it. Instead, he was the only Senator to vote against a net harmful piece of legislation.
n00bsauce87
Member
I know right, it's like people elected him to be a senator to legislate. Like adding amendments to bills before voting. We can't expect him to always try 100% to do everything he can to improve bills on the floor, he's only human.
But before it's out you have more leverage. Can't do much after.
gutter_trash
Banned
Bernie wants a perfect bill and will vote NO on any non-perfect bill.
the flaw with that train of thought is that the best path to perfection is incremental.
sometimes it is best to vote YES for "little" changes to the better even when it's not perfect
IMO, Obamacare is not perfect at all but it's better than nothing.
the flaw with that train of thought is that the best path to perfection is incremental.
sometimes it is best to vote YES for "little" changes to the better even when it's not perfect
IMO, Obamacare is not perfect at all but it's better than nothing.
benicillin
Banned
I see the practice of adding good amendments/riders to mediocre bills to stop people from voting no continues to work well.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
This isn't a little change for the better. On net, this bill is harmful.
reauthorizing the FDA to collect fees from drug companies is a mediocre bill now?
yes, let's defund the FDA. Of course, Bernie has been voting against this authorization for years now
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