POLITICS - "Drug Industrial Complex" Panics

This is about the BIG Drug Companies trying to protect their overly-fat profits over the ability of the-man-on-the-street being able to afford to pay for them.

"Drugmaker ads to target Obama idea" by Sean Lengell, Washington Times

Excerpt, page 1 of 2

Lobbyist readies for prescription price fight

The nation's largest pharmaceutical lobbying group is preparing a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign to tout the importance of free-market health care and undercut an expected push by the Obama administration for price controls of prescription drugs.

The effort, which will include a national television commercial scheduled to begin airing next week, is the first salvo in what likely will be a huge battle over health care reform during the Obama presidency.

Other major industries are also gearing up for the fight, including big businesses and insurance companies. But the stakes are especially high for drugmakers, which stand to lose as much as $30 billion in revenue if President-elect Barack Obama's plan to let the federal government negotiate Medicare drug prices is implemented, according to one independent report.

"There's no question that next year will be a challenging year," said Ken Johnson, senior vice president with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, which is organizing the campaign.

Mr. Obama attacked drug companies repeatedly during his election campaign.

PhRMA says its upcoming advertisement, which will feature TV talk show host and PhRMA spokesman Montel Williams, doesn't criticize the pending Obama administration or any of its health care proposals.

"We're going to do an ad campaign that is designed to make people aware of the importance of preserving your free-market health care system," Mr. Johnson said.

He added that PhRMA recognizes that "some reforms are needed in order to keep that system vibrant."

Mr. Johnson said PhRMA would've embarked on exactly the same ad campaign if Mr. Obama's Republican presidential rival, Sen. John McCain, had won last week's presidential election.

Mr. Obama has said he will hold drug and insurance companies "accountable for the prices they charge and the harm they cause." He has promised to allow Medicare to negotiate with drugmakers for cheaper prices, he said.

This also highlights the MISTAKEN belief that our Free Enterprise System does not have its faults. Free Enterprise as practiced in the USA, is a human invention and therefore faulty as are all things we humans invent. To err is human.

In the context of Drugs & Healthcare, the fault in our Free Enterprise System is that a company's goal of ever more profits (aka greed) DOES put an individual's health and welfare at risk, and can even be a matter of life-and-death.