In the last few days two Sanders Amendments have been voted on. The first was an Amendment protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It failed on a tie vote: 49-49 with only 1 Republican supporting (Collins from Maine).
The other was a bill allowing the importation of drugs. As a reminder, this is not trivial. Drug costs are substantially lower in Canada than in the US. If you could legally import them it would create price pressure here.
In another thread I asked if Progressive Politics was even possible given Democratic reliance on big money donations.
This vote suggests it isn’t. Of course I can hear the cries against “purity tests” already.
You can see the corruption caused by big money. The bill failed 46-52. There were 13 Democratic No’s. Some are predictable – both NJ Senators, who essentially represent Pharma, were against it. Both Senators from Washington voted no – and I don’t honestly know why.
Democratic No’s
Bennett
Booker
Cantwell
Carper
Casey
Coons
Donnelly
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Menendez
Murray
Tester
Warner
Some endangered incumbents in that list. They are making the calculation that the donations are more important than the vote. I suspect after the election in 2018 they will have raised substantial money from Pharma.
It gathered substantial GOP support :
Collins
Cruz
Flake
Grassley
Heller
Kennedy
Lee
McCain
Murkowski
Paul
Thune
Disgraceful. But it do flush them out, no?
the 2009 vote against …
akaka, baucus, burris, bayh, cantwell, carper, carden, casey, durbin, gillibrand, hagan, inouye, kauffman, kerry, kirk, landrieu, lautenberg, levin, lieberman, menendez, mikulski, murray, reed, reid, rockefeller, schumer, udall CO,tester, warner & whitehouse
The leadership was against that vote on the grounds that it imperiled Obamacare.
Still, many of the same players
Believe that’s the point of the comparison: which ones in 2009 supported drug importation but didn’t want to imperil the bill, and which ones latched onto an excuse. Of course, they wouldn’t have gotten 60 anyway, if I’m reading right, so the argument would be why ruffle donor feathers over something that won’t pass? Which is the incorrect read of 2016.
We live in a capitalist society, the market reigns supreme. Until, that is, politicians decide to tip the balance in favor of pharma. This is so dumb, counterproductive, socially and culturally backwards. The whole world laughs while the Americans pay through the nose. Not only that, they pay for a lot of the research that drives the pharmas profits. They’re something superstitious, obscurantist about how the congress remains in thrall to their paymasters. What is the reasoning? Has anyone a clue? Graft?
Best Congress money can buy?
Sen Bob Casey tweet:
<blockqutoe>Voted for amndt by @SenSanders & @RonWyden last night to lower drug prices through importation from Canada
Responses are similar to or variations on:
Booker issues a press release explaining the vote as well. Which I take as a good thing, because he probably thought no one was noticing.
Probably shocked the hell out of them that all those “BernieBros” aren’t rubes, haven’t melted away, and aren’t ready to play nice. But Casey’s twitter thread is mild compared to what David Brock got in response to his appeal for peace with Sanders’ supporters.
I loved this response and comments.
Did you check out the thread to Brock’s actual post? It’s even more of a delight to read through than what was included in the C99% diary.
Yes, but I didn’t see any responses. Maybe they were suppressed? Maybe you need a Facebook or twitter account to read them?
just click on see all responses and they show up
thanks for suggesting
I look at it the same way I look at Senator Durbin’s continued support for what I think is the single worst policy in the United States — corn subsidies. Of course he supports them because he is a from state that is heavily reliant on big agriculture. In my opinion corn subsidies are of the devil and have a hand in everything from the obesity epidemic in this country, to the rise in illegal immigration after NAFTA passed, to the drug war, to us not finding a better source of bio-fuel than corn. Still as much as I loathe corn subsidies I understand why Senator Durbin supports them. Much like I understand why NJ Senators are pretty aligned with big pharma.
I would bet that Durban’s voters would poll in favor of corn subsidies. As well as his big ag donors.
Wonder if Booker’s voters, not just his donors, would vote against reimportation of Canadian drugs.
it’s big ag, contrast with farmers. family farm defenders have some pages on the issue
http://familyfarmers.org/
Durbin’s voters are urban and suburban residents of the Chicago metro area. The people who live in the corn growing areas of Illinois vote Republican.
Duncan
Has been hitting all the right notes since way back in 2002 when I first discovered his blog.
Also:
The Good Old Days Are Back
So easy to forget that so recently the Democratic party at the national level was in deep doo-doo. Much of it of their own making as many rolled over for the Bush regime.
Wasn’t surprising after eight years of Clintonism.
Howard Dean started the climb back, no matter what he did later. He did electrify the Party. I put his SanFran speech on a DVD and sent it to everyone in my family.
Getting a taste of real power must be incredibly intoxicating. So much so that when its withdrawn for seemingly no reason that one will grovel before those that took it away and cast aside everything and everyone that had been the source of the original power. Not shedding any tears for Dean — he chose to abase himself (probably made easier by the fact that he’d long been a conserva-dem before looking to his left) — but what a hollow man he has become.
P.S. Including the ones that belonged to the Religious Right. I’ll bet that part about being sick of the fundamentalist preachers gave them the vapors!