Drug companies spending $3 million a week on lobbying (Jack Bog's Blog)

As we're waking up to the important national debate on health care, it's important to note that the action isn't all innocent little coffee klatsches with Howard Dean and some adoring hippies and polite senior citizens. There is also some serious lobbying going on, even by Washington standards. Take the drug manufacturers, for example:

In those three months, PhRMA spent just over $6 million, which breaks down to about $2 million a month.
But the reports filed by the companies that belong to PhRMA reveal that during this same period, all but a few of them were running their own lobby shops as well. The drugmaker Pfizer alone spent $5.5 million. Amgen, Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKline spent about $3 million each.

Add it all up and you get this: In those three critical months, PhRMA and its member companies spent $40 million lobbying Congress. That's more than $3 million each week.

Wonder why the overwhelmingly Democratic federal government can't get health care reform done in a straightforward manner? The answer can largely be found in the nonpartisan nature of money.

Comments (5)

You can bet all that money is directed against a public option. Big Pharma and the insurance industry fear real competition. How can they settle for decent profits when they have become accustomed to obscene ones. The pigs at the trough squeal loudly as they fear a smaller trough. The people should send those Dems who enjoy all the bacon and vote their self interest - out of office. Then they too can become lobbyists, or "special advisers" like Gordon Smith.

Posted by genop | July 26, 2009 12:59 PM

If the industry can afford to run expensive, non-stop television commercials you know they're pretty fat.

I am getting the sneaking suspicion that all this scare mongering about the spector of swine flu in the fall is simply a pharm-spawned tactic to sell more product. Especially since the first batch turned out to be worthless.

The irony of pigs at the trough pushing swine flu vaccine is not lost on me.

Posted by NW Portlander | July 26, 2009 2:34 PM

Yup, NW Portlander... it's become all fear all the time...keep the masses in a constant state of fear, panic and prejudice while the country is being bankrupted...

A friend of mine said recently, what has Obama accomplished that McCain wouldnt have to? Im beginning to wonder why I even vote...

Posted by Robert | July 26, 2009 5:30 PM

And how much are the public employee unions spending on lobbying to keep their lavish health care benefits and avoid having them taxed?

There's no question that any "public option", "single payer", "universal health care" forced upon the taxpaying public will not be acceptable for unions.

And there's no way to ever fund anything remotely close to public employee level health benefits for the whole country.

So how does that pan out?

Posted by Ben | July 26, 2009 6:41 PM

A friend of mine in LO just found out that her current chemotherapies are no longer working on her cancer ... so she has spent the last week trying to negotiate with her insurance company to see if they will allow her (pay for) treatment by getting into a clinical trial in Houston, at the #1 cancer clinic in the country.

This is the system the bastards are fighting to protect --- where people have to beg strangers on the phone in god-knows-where to convince them that they shouldn't have to die without treatment that others get because it's "out of network."

I hope that every SOB who says we don't need single payer gets to watch someone they care about deal with no insurance or insurance refusal to pay for treatment for a ferocious disease at an "out of network" facility

Posted by George Anonymuncule Seldes | July 27, 2009 1:55 AM

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Sunday, July 26, 2009

Drug companies spending $3 million a week on lobbying

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