December 7, 2023

Senator Ron Johnson, armed with a new word that he cannot pronounce and a heavily edited video, tries to argue that President Joe Biden and the federal government have "screwed everything up" by putting in price controls on medicines like insulin:

I haven't heard the word monospony purchasing power yet. Where you've got basically the federal goverment with their drug formulary, pretty much driving most of these prices. I would ask the witnesses, can you think of a common consumer product that is always in persistent shortages? Can anybody think of one? You know, there may be some, but, you know, the reason there aren't is you've got, you know, millions, billions of consumers, and the market place takes care of all these problems. It demands higher quality. It demands better levels of customer service. It demands the best price. but because we have the federal government involved in the healthcare market place, it screwed everything up. Third party payer systems through insurance is another kind of monospony purchasing power, as well. So we need to focus on what we can do to bring consumers into the process here.

Basically, RoJo is trying to say that in a free market system, it would alleviate shortages and bring the best quality, the best customer service and the best price.

What he doesn't mention is that we tried that and it failed and too many people were skipping doses or not getting the medicine at all because there were shortages which drove up prices to where people couldn't afford them. But by installing price control, the government is making it affordable and that in turn is keeping people healthier and lowering the cost of healthcare overall.

It is no surprise that RoJo is a big fan of Big Pharma, or to be more accurate, of Big Pharma's big campaign donations. RoJo is such a big fan that he openly admitted it and his reason for it:

Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said, “I’ve always been a big supporter of big pharma … I’m all for the profit motive, the development of new drugs.” The statement made on the Vicki McKenna show in October 2021 was in the context of Johnson’s ongoing support of major pharmaceutical corporations — despite his critique of manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccines.

He also has openly stated that he opposes price controls to lower prices because it "punishes" Big Pharma.
The biggest reason why RoJo and Big Pharma are so happy together is because they have one thing in common - they don't really care about helping people as long as they make a killing doing it.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon