A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.
To get the Affordable Care Act passed, President Obama enlisted the help of the pharmaceutical industry. In return, Big Pharma received more customers and protection from tough bargaining on prices.
What if Big Pharma demanded, and was promised, more? What if it demanded help in protecting its drug prices around the world?
That’s not idle speculation. In his Trade and Trust column in the New York Times yesterday, Paul Krugman observed:
In any case, the Pacific trade deal isn’t really about trade. Some already low tariffs would come down, but the main thrust of the proposed deal involves strengthening intellectual property rights — things like drug patents and movie copyrights — and changing the way companies and countries settle disputes. And it’s by no means clear that either of those changes is good for America.
On intellectual property: patents and copyrights are how we reward innovation. But do we need to increase those rewards at consumers’ expense? Big Pharma and Hollywood think so, but you can also see why, for example, Doctors Without Borders is worried that the deal would make medicines unaffordable in developing countries. That’s a serious concern, and it’s one that the pact’s supporters haven’t addressed in any satisfying way.
Krugman concludes:
Instead of addressing real concerns, however, the Obama administration has been dismissive, trying to portray skeptics as uninformed hacks who don’t understand the virtues of trade. But they’re not: the skeptics have on balance been more right than wrong about issues like dispute settlement, and the only really hackish economics I’ve seen in this debate is coming from supporters of the trade pact.
It’s really disappointing and disheartening to see this kind of thing from a White House that has, as I said, been quite forthright on other issues. And the fact that the administration evidently doesn’t feel that it can make an honest case for the Trans-Pacific Partnership suggests that this isn’t a deal we should support.
That’s a polite way of suggesting the TPP is really a payoff for Big Pharma’s not torpedoing the ACA. And a payoff that must be delivered certainly explains why Obama is highballing the fast track express and steamrolling the TPP’s critics. He pays his political debts even when that inflicts bitter medicine on the nation.