President Monkey Boy And His Republican Bitches Face A Choice Between Helping Those In Uniform Or Helping Big Pharma. Guess Which One They Went With?

C'mon, you know as well as I do which one they chose. Sure, when it doesn't cost them anything, Republicans love to stand in front of the flag and a few hundred buzz-cut camouflage wearing hoo-ahs and proclaim their unwavering devotion to both. But when the rubber meets the road, or more specifically, when the campaign contribution meets governmental policy decisions, their true colors come out, and they ain't red, white, and blue. I'll let the military paper Stars and Stripes set the stage:

Pressured by the White House and drug industry lobbyists, Congress has killed a Senate-passed provision that would have forced pharmaceutical manufacturers to grant the Department of Defense deep discounts on drugs dispensed through the Tricare retail pharmacy network.

Key words: "Pressured by the White House and drug industry lobbyists"

The situation in a nutshell was this. A dispute arose as to whether a federal procurement law passed in 1992 that gave discounts to drugs purchased by the Department of Veterans Affairs also applied to drugs paid for through the Tricare retail network. The language in the law was evidently a bit ambiguous. The Department of Defense said "we get the same discount", Big Pharma said "in your dreams GI Joe", and the whole thing was headed to court. The situation was a lawyers wet dream. The Senate made a move to end the whole thing by putting language in this years defense authorization bill that made it clear that the men and women in uniform are indeed entitled to the same prices for meds as the men and women who used to wear the uniform. This set up a fight with the most well organized, well-prepared, brutally efficient enemy the military has ever seen. A fearsome alliance of Merck, Pfizer, Bayer, Sanofi-Aventis, Takeda Pharmaceuticals and others, representing forces of capital from the US, The United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan, sprang into action against our armed forces. George Bush, commander in chief, took a look at the situation and put the power of the presidency...... behind the worldwide axis of profit. Back to Stars and Stripes:

After the Senate passed its bill, White House politicos began to pressure House Republicans to fight the Senate provision in final negotiations over the defense bill, in effect, undercutting their own Defense Department as it strives to curb soaring drug costs.

“Tremendous forces” targeted conferees from the armed services committees as they began to negotiate over the bill, said a staff member. “Pharmacies, drug manufacturers … the politics went right through the roof.”

Key words: UNDERCUTTING THEIR OWN DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

You know how it ended. They may have fought bravely for what they believed in, but the armed services of The United States of America were quite simply no match for the Pharmaceutical industry. Perhaps someday we'll build a nice monument to those who so valiantly opposed the idea that the federal government should pay as much as it possibly can when it buys things. Maybe we'll give out some medals and ribbons as well.

After all, that wouldn't cost us very much.