December 10, 2019 Issue, Page 4 of 10

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Page 4 The Elk City News, Elk City, Oklahoma Tuesday, December 10, 2019 Opinion Page Senate drug plan helps “ElkCituNews Serving Western Oklahoma since 1901 government, hurts patients Pelosi’s drug bill By Andrew Langer efit. Right now, 45 million to prevent drug companies siphon money away from the Nancy Pelosi has a plan Americans rely on Part D for from raising prices. But in search for new treatments. to lower drug prices. The drug coverage. reality, it would encourage It takes more than $2.6 has a huge, Speaker of the House just re- leased a new bill that would Rather than administering the benefit itself, the federal manufacturers to launch medicines at higher list pric- billion, on average, for sci- entists to bring one new drug hidden price tag impose a slew of new taxes government subsidizes pri- es, raising costs for benefi- to market. Research firms and allow the government vate insurers who sell Part ciaries. rely on revenue from suc- to meddle with private busi- D plans to patients. These The bill would also impose cessful drugs to fund future By Candace DeMatteis nesses. insurers compete for benefi- a 20 percent manufacturer endeavors. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just released a bill that We've come to expect this ciaries’ business by offering tax on drugs sold in Medi- The Senate bill’s new would allow government regulators to set artificially low type of extremism from Pe- quality plans at affordable care’s “catastrophic phase.” taxes would cut into drug losi and House Democrats. prices. Currently, once Part D bene- prices for hundreds of medicines. makers’ ability to recoup Unfortunately, Republicans As a result of this compe- ficiaries spend $5,100 out of These price caps would stifle medical research, making it on the Senate Finance Com- tition, average monthly Part research costs and earn a re- pocket, the government and turn. That means more than harder for scientists to cure Alzheimer’s and a host of other mittee have put forward a D premiums are around $32 their insurer pay for 95 per- 4,000 drugs currently being chronic diseases that currently burden millions of families strikingly similar plan. -- half of original Congres- cent of each drug they take. developed for Alzheimer’s, and threaten to overwhelm the healthcare system in the Like Pelosi’s bill, the Sen- sional Budget Office projec- The Senate bill would shift a cancer and other diseases coming decades. ate package would impose tion. And nine in 10 seniors majority of that burden onto could die in the lab. The Lower Drug Costs Now Act would impose outright new taxes on innovators. are satisfied with their Part D manufacturers. This would There’s no doubt that the price controls on common treatments for everything from While this plan would save coverage. cost biotech firms $55 bil- the government money in Unfortunately, the Senate lion over the next decade. Senate Finance Commit- cancer to multiple sclerosis. If companies don’t comply, the short-term, it wouldn’t Finance Committee is will- Just like the “inflation tee’s plan would deliver they’d face a substantial penalty of 95 percent of gross rev- do anything to reduce pa- ing to compromise this suc- penalty,” this new tax won’t short-term savings to the enues from the drug. tients’ out-of-pocket costs. cessful program to generate help patients. If the 20 per- government. But it would do Price controls could save the government a considerable And over time, it would some short-term savings. cent manufacturer liability so at the expense of medi- sum in the short run. But any savings would come at the ex- make it harder for research- For instance, the bill takes effect, 98 percent of cal progress, without help- pense of medical progress. It takes as much as $2.6 billion ers to develop new cures. would penalize drug compa- beneficiaries won’t see their ing patients at the pharmacy for research companies to bring one new drug to market. The Senate Finance Com- nies who raise their prices in out-of-pocket costs drop. counter. mittee’s package would re- Medicare faster than the rate Some could even see their Andrew Langer is Presi- Consider efforts to cure Alzheimer’s disease, which have structure Medicare’s “Part of inflation. pharmacy bills go up. dent of the Institute for Lib- greatly impacted me and my family. My uncle is now in D” prescription drug ben- This policy is supposed These policies would also erty. the final stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Watching such a vi- brant, fun-loving, outgoing man disappear by inches with- out any opportunity for improvement is heartbreaking. As A presidential speech the world needs to hear our population ages, millions of other uncles, aunts, par- By Winslow Myers terrence has prevented apoc- in-Chief, am taking the first where strategic advantage is ents and grandparents could face similar fates; Alzheimer’s “Good evening, my fellow alypse. Our challenge is that step backward with three no longer available by way alone threatens to overwhelm our healthcare system. Americans. deterrence is not a steady, initiatives. of more weapons of mass Companies have already invested billions in the search “T want to speak frankly stable condition but instead “First, I pledge that the with you tonight about a re- an ever-changing unstable United States will never un- destruction. The same tech- for a treatment to alter the progression of Alzheimer’s dis- ease with very limited success. ality that the nuclear powers one. The relentless march der any circumstances initi- nology which enabled these have so far refused to ac- of ‘we build/they build’ ate the use of nuclear weap- Sadly, scientists may never find a cure for Alzheimer’s knowledge as the arms race technological competition ons. weapons to be built will also if price caps take effect. Researchers would struggle to at- goes forward unchecked. is constantly providing new “Second, as a further con- be up to the task of verify- tract funding for new research projects. Companies might ‘We have arrived at a point in weapons delivery systems. fidence-building gesture, I ing whether nations meet pull the plug on experimental treatments in the develop- history when the destructive These systems are attached am bringing back to base professed commitments that ment pipeline, thereby depriving patients of breakthrough power and complexity of to ever more complex elec- two of our Trident ballistic will allow a world free of the medicines. our weapons systems have tronic monitoring devices, missile submarines, and I become so overwhelming and these devices are in turn am ordering our intelligence scourge of nuclear weapons. In the long run, price controls could increase costs for pa- that their strategic useful- attached to fallible humans, services to be on the look- “My final point is that not tients and the government. More than 190 million Ameri- ness cancels any good that the whole enchilada subject out for reciprocal gestures only have we been overtaken cans suffer from at least one chronic disease. That number they could possibly do to to the unspoken paradox of from the other nuclear pow- continues to grow. Over the next decade, chronic diseases by inconvenient nuclear re- maintain security for our deterrence: in order to never ers. If we see clear evidence could cost patients and taxpayers almost $42 trillion, cu- own or any other nation. We be used, the weapons must of such gestures, our nation alities, but also that America mulatively. New cures could revolutionize medicine and all know this. President Rea- be ready for instant use. will respond in kind, be- must lead in the redirection reduce overall health spending, but they won’t be devel- gan acknowledged as much “My fellow citizens, no ginning, I fervently hope, a of the immense resources when he said back in 1984 one has more respect than virtuous circle of military oped unless companies have market incentives to fund re- we have been pouring into ‘a nuclear war can never me for the professionalism stand-downs and a conse- search. be won and must never be of the various branches of quent relaxation of tensions. nuclear weapons and their Smart public policies can trim healthcare costs at the fought.’ our military. Our problem “Third, I am calling for an delivery systems. margins. But there are only two ways to substantially slash “The clearest demonstra- is that the prevention of an ongoing international con- The very survival of the overall healthcare spending -- prevent people from getting tion of this reality is con- extinction event like nuclear ference of military and dip- sick, or help them manage their conditions to avoid costly tained in computer models winter is dependent upon lomatic leaders to share with planet demands that we hospitalizations. that show how few nuclear not only our own personnel each other the dire implica- transform our own so-called detonations would be nec- and equipment making zero tions of a hair-trigger deter- military-industrial com- Both solutions require new treatments and cures. If re- essary to plunge the world mistakes, but also upon the rence system and to come up searchers discovered a treatment that delays the onset of into a cooling phase so other nuclear powers doing with realistic ways to go be- plex—and incentivize other Alzheimer’s disease, our health system could save $650 widespread that agricul- the same—forever. yond it and prevent disaster. advanced countries into do- billion within five years. ture would be affected for “But we must face the I expect the personnel of ing the same—into a global All told, new and better medicines could save our health a decade—in effect, a death tragic reality that accidents both nuclear and non-nucle- powerhouse that will pro- system $6.3 trillion and save 16 million lives by 2030, ac- sentence for the planet. It and misinterpretations are ar nations to participate, giv- cording to a study by my organization, the Partnership to would take the use of only 3 not only possible with tech- en that they all have a mortal vide sustainable energy and to 5 percent of existing U.S. nologically complex sys- stake in a positive outcome, prevent rising temperatures Fight Chronic Disease. nuclear weapons to loft into tems—they are inevitable. and also given that there are from rendering vast reaches Though well-intentioned, Speaker Pelosi’s bill is penny- the high atmosphere enough This we have learned the many nations who continue wise and pound-foolish. In exchange for some government dust and ash to circle the hard way, from the Chal- to assume that their self-in- of the planet uninhabitable. savings today, it sacrifices much needed medical break- earth and make food pro- lenger disaster, from Cher- terest and survival requires We have no other choice but throughs that could save trillions of dollars and millions of duction impossible. Even a nobyl, from Fukushima, nuclearization. to thread the needle between lives tomorrow. limited exchange between from the two 737 Max 8 di- “Now I fully realize many potential global cooling by Candace DeMatteis is the policy director at the Partner- two nuclear powers would sasters, just to name a signif- citizens and strategic experts nuclear winter and the cli- amount to planetary suicide. icant few. We are caught ina will question the usefulness ship to Fight Chronic Disease. mate emergency of excess Retaliation, the basis of de- pervasive illusion, a web of or even the common sense terrence strategy, would denial: we acknowledge that of these proposals. Since carbon dioxide. Have something only hasten the end of all we planes can crash and chemi- the end of the World War “God bless the United love. cal plants can explode, but Two, a war which coincided “This is a major reason we do not seem to be able with the beginning both of States of America, and why 80 non-nuclear nations to acknowledge, because we the atomic age and the Cold equally bless the other na- to share? have signed the United Na- have become so dependent War standoff with other su- upon it, that the mighty de- perpowers, the peace has tions treaty outlawing the tions of the world as we manufacture and deploy- terrence system of the ex- been kept through over- work together to move in Send your letter ment of nuclear weapons. isting nuclear nations itself whelming military strength the direction of a planet that None of the nine nuclear could fail if we continue the (the peace between super- works for all.” powers have signed this arms race. powers, that is—there was Winslow Myers, syndi- treaty, because established “We need to question our a great deal of war in many to editor@ecdaily- porate thinking asserts that tions, cated by PeaceVoice, is the most fundamental assump- countries during that period, political, military and cor- and if they are about author of “Living Beyond some of which threatened to the power of these weapons to lead us off a cliff, must bring nuclear powers into War: A Citizen’s Guide.” news.com have been a deterrent to fur- we not turn around and be- direct conflict). The United He serves on the Advisory ther global war. gin to take steps away from States will maintain this su- “People of good will may that cliff? perior strength even as we Board of the War Prevention argue that the volicv of de- “Todav I. as Commander- explore this new landscave Initiative.