"Congressional Republicans are enthusiastically doubling down on the corruption openings five Republicans on the Supreme Court gave them when they legalized political bribery with Citizens United.
Their newest scam is trying to stop Medicare from negotiating drug prices.
A new study this year by the RAND Corporation found that Americans pay 4.22 times more for brand-name drugs than the citizens of any other developed country.
That's a 422% markup against the (already profitable) prices people in other countries pay for the same drugs, with the entire burden borne by citizens of the US, directly or indirectly.
And that price-gouging has been on hyperdrive since the Bush administration got legislation passed in 2003 that forbade Medicare from negotiating drug prices like the Pentagon, big hospital chains, and drug store chains do routinely:
Between that year and 2020, retail prescription drug spending exploded by 91 percent in the US.
Their lies to Congress aside, drug companies aren't using that money to develop new products; every genuinely new drug developed in the US over the past decade was funded by our government.
Instead, the senior executives in the industry are using those profits they extracted from you and me to buy new corporate jets, luxury yachts, and palatial mansions all around the world."
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"When Clarence Thomas cast the deciding vote in Citizens United after taking millions in bribes ... er, tips ... from rightwing billionaires with business before the Court, he was merely reflecting the position the GOP has held since the Reagan administration embraced corruption as a way of life.
That began, you'll remember, with the Reagan campaign cutting a deal to hold the Iranian hostages to screw Jimmy Carter in 1980. Totally transactional.
Now it's barely news when Republicans sell out America's voters for the proverbial bag of silver."
much more at the link
Here's the video version:
www.youtube.com
This Proper Function of the Free Market's Invisible Hand... and so MB Approved!
"Critics argue that the idea that actions of self-interested, profit-driven actors will converge on some social optimum is clearly false.
Instead, they naturally lead to negative externalities, economic and social inequalities, greed, and exploitation.
Moreover, competition driven by the invisible hand can ultimately result in monopolies and the concentration of economic power, both of which are undesirable for society."
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/invisiblehand.asp