Also in that Room: Democratic Biotech-Paid Whores
In my last post, I showed you what a roomful of Republican biotech-paid whores looks like. But in that same room are the following Democratic biotech-paid whores.
Two comments on this. First, both the Republicans and Democrats included a talking point that I haven’t included in these two posts–talking about the necessity to do testing to make sure the biosimilars are interchangeable (Peterr collects the Dem version here). I aspire to do a post collecting all of them to show you bipartisan whoredom in action, if I recover from this tedium.
The other thing: check out the difference in talking points. Sure, the biotech lobbies made Republicans look like assholes. But they basically scripted Democrats into parroting simple five-paragraph essays of the kind you had to write when you were in third grade: Thesis, 1, 2, 3, conclusion. Are they suggesting Democrats can’t handle a script–a frigging script submitted to the record, not read!!–harder than that? If they weren’t already ashamed at being industry whores, they really ought to hang their heads for how stupid the industry made them appear.
“Another significant benefit: jobs jobs jobs!”
Bob Filner
I wanted to draw attention to another significant benefit of this legislation: the creation of new high-paying jobs in this country. Let me repeat that for some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, this bill will create high-paying, high-quality jobs in healthcare delivery, technology and research in the United States.
Yvette Clarke
Another significant benefit of this legislation, which has not received as much attention, will be the creation of new high paying jobs, high quality jobs in healthcare delivery, technology and research in the United States.
Donald Payne
Another significant benefit of this legislation which has not received as much attention will be the creation of new high-paying jobs in this country. Let me repeat that for some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, this bill will create high-paying, high-quality jobs in healthcare delivery, technology and research in the United States.
Bill Pascrell
Another significant benefit of this legislation which has not received as much attention will be the creation of new high-paying jobs in this country. Let me repeat that for some of my friends on the other side of the aisle: this bill will create high-paying, high-quality jobs in health care delivery, technology, and research in the United States.
Phil Hare
With unemployment at its highest level since 1983, another significant benefit of this legislation that should be highlighted is the creation of new high-paying jobs in this country. Let me repeat that for some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, this bill will create high-paying, high-quality jobs in healthcare delivery, technology and research in the United States.
Linda Sanchez
But another significant benefit of this legislation which has not received much attention is its promotion of high-paying research, high tech, and manufacturing jobs. Contrary to the claims that this is a “job killing bill,” in fact, this bill will create thousands of jobs here in the United States.
Robert Brady
Another significant benefit of this legislation which has not received as much attention will be the creation of new high-paying jobs in this country. Let me repeat that for some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, this bill will create high-paying, high-quality jobs in healthcare delivery, technology, and research in the United States.
“1) An enormous demand for healthcare workers!”
Bob Filner
First, this bill will create enormous demand for healthcare workers, especially in the area of primary care.
Yvette Clarke
First, this bill will create enormous demand for healthcare workers, especially in the area of primary care.
Donald Payne
First, this bill will create enormous demand for healthcare workers, especially in the area of primary care.
Bill Pascrell
First, H.R. 3962 will create enormous demand for health care workers, especially in the area of primary care.
Phil Hare
This bill will additionally create enormous demand for healthcare workers, especially in the area of primary care.
Linda Sanchez
First, this bill will increase demand for healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, home health workers, and more.
Robert Brady
First, this bill will create enormous demand for healthcare workers, especially in the area of primary care.
“2) Health information technologies”
Bob Filner
Second, this bill will continue the efforts we began in the stimulus package to deploy new health information technologies that better manage both the quality of care people receive and the cost at which they receive it.
Yvette Clarke
Second, this bill will continue the efforts we began in the stimulus package to deploy new health information technologies that better manage both the quality of care and the cost of it.
Donald Payne
Second, this bill will continue the efforts we began in the stimulus package to deploy new health information technologies that better manage both the quality of care people receive and the cost at which they receive it.
Bill Pascrell
Second, the Affordable Health Care for America Act will continue the efforts we began in the stimulus package to deploy new health information technologies that better manage both the quality of care people receive and the cost at which they receive it.
Phil Hare
The Affordable Health Care for America Act will continue the efforts this Congress first undertook in the Recovery Act that deployed new health information technologies throughout our healthcare system. These technologies help to better manage both the quality of care people receive and the cost at which they receive it.
Linda Sanchez
Second, this bill will continue the investments begun in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the stimulus bill, to expand the use of health information technology.Health IT will help better manage the quality and cost of care patients receive by eliminating duplicative tests and ensuring that patients don’t receive the wrong medicine or the wrong dose.
Robert Brady
Second, this bill will continue the efforts we began in the stimulus package to deploy new health information technologies that better manage both the quality of care people receive and the cost at which they receive it.
“3) High quality research opportunities!”
Bob Filner
Third, this bill will create high quality research opportunities in this country. The Energy and Commerce Committee enacted a framework for allowing biosimilar competition in this country. This new class of medicines will help lower costs and bring competition to one area that is key to the future of our healthcare system. Biotechnology is on the cutting edge of efforts to reducing costly invasive procedures and allowing our constituents to live healthier and more productive lives.
Yvette Clarke
Third, this bill will create new research opportunities in this country. The Energy and Commerce Committee enacted a framework for allowing biosimilar competition in this country. This new class of medicines will help lower costs and bring competition to one area that is key to the future of our healthcare system. Biotechnology is on the cutting edge of efforts to reduce costly invasive procedures, thereby allowing our constituents to live healthier and more productive lives.
Donald Payne
Third, this bill will create high quality research opportunities in this country. The Energy and Commerce Committee enacted a framework for allowing biosimilar competition in this country. This new class of medicines will help lower costs and bring competition to one area that is key to the future of our healthcare system. Biotechnology is on the cutting edge of efforts to reducing costly invasive procedures and allowing our constituents to live healthier and more productive lives.
Bill Pascrell
Third, H.R. 3962 will create high quality research opportunities for America. The legislation under consideration establishes a framework for allowing biosimilar competition in this country. This new class of medicines will help lower costs and bring competition to an area that is a key to the future of our health care system. Biotechnology is on the cutting edge of efforts to reduce costly invasive procedures and allow our constituents to live healthier and more productive lives.
Phil Hare
[presented first in the series] This bill creates a framework for allowing biosimilar competition in this country, which has the potential to lead to a new class of generic biologic medicines that will help lower costs and bring competition to one of the areas that will be key to the future of our healthcare system.
Linda Sanchez
Finally, this bill will promote more of what America already does so well: medical research. By allowing more Americans access to health insurance, this bill will increase the demand for advanced medical technologies that are manufactured right here in America. And by creating a process for the Food and Drug Administration to approve so-called “biosimilar” drugs, this bill will encourage competition in the cutting edge field of biologic drugs. This new class of medicines will help cure and treat more Americans at lower costs.
Robert Brady
Third, this bill will create high quality research opportunities in this country. The Energy and Commerce Committee enacted a framework for allowing biosimilar competition in this country. This new class of medicines will help lower costs and bring competition to one area that is key to the future of our healthcare system. Biotechnology is on the cutting edge of efforts to reducing costly invasive procedures and allowing our constituents to live healthier and more productive lives.
Get yer fresh PhRMA talking points right chere! Fresh PhRMA talking points! Get ’em while they’re hot off the presses! Bamfoozle the masses and make ’em think yer on their side!
For shame. My congresscritter, Yvette Clarke, is on here. I’m calling her in the morning.
Mine is too. I’d call him but I don’t know what to say. Damn, if only I had a script to read…
So outraging — but just excellent work on this today!
Let’s get some academic to point their fancy pattern-recognition software at the Congressional Record every day to spot this kinda regurgitation/ghostwriting stuff and report it. Then either it’ll stop because of the embarrassment at being caught at it, or else they’ll need to spend significantly more money lobbying because they’ll have to write a different script for each Congresscritter to avoid detection. Good outcome either way!
Every now and then we come across a great idea. This is surely one of them. It’s not rocket science, and an assistant prof in poli sci could make a quick reputation doing well by doing good.
What a nice endorsement, thank you for that. Anybody know any appropriate academics to get that started? I’m pretty sure it could get funded with ease.
Incredibly disheartening. If I didn’t have children and grandchildren to look out for, I’d be so outta here.
“…hang their heads for how stupid the industry made them appear to be.”
I take exception with “…appear to be”
These demo-Pharmo-crats are genuinely stupid individuals.
Eyes glowing when it comes to industry pay-offs to themselves;
Slack-jawed and dull-eyed when it comes to understanding what is in the public interest.
I thought that all the repetition was in a kind of “live-blogging” style — similar content in different words comes out as similar words.
You mean that these things are QUOTES?!
Good Grief. How do these people face themselves in the mirror?
If they all looked into the same mirror, they’d all see the same face, and it wouldn’t belong to any of them.
That worn out Congressional phrase “revise and extend my remarks” does not actually mean what it says. Often, neither the remarks, nor revisions and extensions, are theirs at all; just propaganda they are soaking the record with.
I can’t think of another occupation where echoing like this would be tolerated, and even rewarded by invisible hands!!!
Plato may have been onto something with his Philosopher King — keep knocking off the ones who want to be in power until you get to the one who DOESN’T want to be in power, then put him or her in power.
The sad thing is that it really doesn’t seem that it would take all THAT much sunlight to make such awful practices dry up and blow away. You know, there ARE plagiarism-detecting programs, aren’t there? And the Congression Record and the like ARE available in searchable form, aren’t they? You could practically automate it.
I’m really disappointed in Bob Filner.
you know what, as brutal as this fisking is and as depressing it is to read, i don’t think the most effective angle would be to engage these representatives on their stances here. i think that in order to really put the screws to them (hopefully on video while walking through the halls of congress) is to inquire why their words are so similar to others.
furthermore, i think it would be an interesting project to take the congressional record and start to datamine it, plagiarism-style, for similar talking points. i wonder if the CR has a web API.
All of these folks at the same cacktail party would be really boring. Just imagine going from one to another and they all say the samething. Stepford Congresscritters!
Now there’s a frightening thought.
If nothing else, total attack ad fodder for all who may venture to run against any of these folks next time. From either side of the aisle.
Marcy,
Wonderful piece of work! Embarrassment might work even better than ridicule.
Bob in AZ
Slow burn. My congressman (Filner) is on the list AND he didn’t hold a healthcare town hall in August. Guess he doesn’t need to listen to us.
Apologies for the O/T
Yoo, still torturing logic after all these years.
The KSM Trial Will Be an Intelligence Bonanza for al Qaeda
How did I know before clicking that would link to WSJ?
Yoo sez “It is in effect a declaration that this nation is no longer at war.” I think maybe the light is dawning on him. Bit late, though. Creep.
Why? Because you are sage, tha’s all.
You’re always so nice… I’m just aging, not at all the same thing as sage.
I’ve never seen bipartisan (or is this post-partisan?) whoredom before. I’m so simplistic. I figured bribers just went to one side or the other, but not both at the same time. Two very instructive pieces, EW, thanks.
Uh, how about all those 415-12 and 95-2 House/Senate votes for whatever AIPAC wants?
OT
Everyone may know this by now, but WIRED is asking for help reading FISA documents
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/11/examine-spy-documents/
OT: See my short diary to see how Obama is fighting censorship over there so that he doesn’t have to over here.
The additional issue is self-censorship. It is here and in China.
This is just a quote to show how much we have lost in using human rights as a negotiating tactic.
We have nothing to stand on unless we address torture.
As you point out, we do not even have the human rights issue of free speech vs censorship to stand on between the photos and FISA aside from torture.
Oh, ha. When I read the title and first sentence, instread of reading “biotech”, my brain saw “biotch”. Probably because I haven’t had coffee yet.
Two explanations. Either they are on the take, or they are incredibly stupid. I incline to the latter, as they are not Rethugs, but the bottom line is the same. They ought to be tossed out.
All that’s truly unusual in this case is that someone in the lobbying food chain risked his or her job to leak the smoking-gun emails to the NYT. A concerted journalistic data-mining search of the Congressional Record would likely turn up countless instances of cloned language inserted at the behest of who knows how many industries.
Marcy, you do phenomenal work. I was pretty sure you wouldn’t be able to continue without kudos from me. /s Talking Pointed Heads are not only trained parrots but supremely lazy. But then you already know that.
Hiya Barbara !
I saw your shoutout the other day but by the time I replied, you were gone.
Petro!!! I come and go like fog in the early morning lowlands.
LOL !!!
Ah, so it was your mist that made me missread. Hi Barb.
They’re covering this issue this morning on Morning Meeting with Dylan Ratigan. Not nearly as well as Marcy has covered it, of course, but still. They’re basically playing the “What’s wrong with this” ‘both sides of the story’ game rather than just spend what few minutes they have to spend on the issue by explaining how damaging this is to our democracy and how cheap and weak and lazy and ignorant our “Representatives” are for not actually doing the hard work of representing us.
What’s cracking me up is the MSM — to the extent that they’re “Outraged, I tell you, OUTRAGED!” about congresscritters regurgitating talking points spoon-fed them by lobbyists — after the way the MSM “reported” on the Bush years??? Indiscriminately regurgitating repug talking points, word for word, for 8 fucking years??? I’d cry if I could stop LMAO.
Uhm, excuse me, but my buddy is Mr. Nicco, a Congo African Grey parrot. He has a 21-word and growing vocabulary, so he’s mature enough to drink. He can follow a conversation and interject appropriate comments like swear words, particularly if he hears Obama, Congress, or Baucus, and he wants to ask Jane to go out on a date, but if she says “public option please,” he’ll say, “Medicare for all, damnit!”
Just wanted to point out that most parrots are smarter than people (no, I’m not sayin he’s smarter than Jane, cuz nobody is cept maybe Marcy), and they’re definitely smarter than anyone in Congress.
The disturbance y’all feel in the Force is due to the parrots communicating telepathically chanting, “Parrots of the World Unite Against Firedoglake Disrespect, Parrots of the World Unite Against Firedoglake Disrespect, Parrots of the World Unite Against Firedoglake Disrespect.”
has Nicco formed an exploratory committee yet ? I know a Yellow Naped Amazon looking for work :D
Good Morning Emptywheel and Firedogs,
stumbled across something while cross checking language with PHRMa –
Public Health Econom. types propose scrapping Patents and replacing them with Prizes – no less than Stiglitz advocates for it and Bernie Sanders (shock!) introduced it in a 2005 Bill. Current BIO Shill Henry Grabowski once spoke in favor
even I was able to grasp some of the more obvious advantages to this approach
thought the wonkier types among us may enjoy a stroll through these weeds:
Link (pdf)
New post up back at teh Lake.
What gets me is that there is absolutely no acknowledgement that while legislation on biosimilars was needed, a much better alternative (Schumer/Waxman) was sacrificed on Mammon’s altar.
When the party is on the take, you gotta be repetitive.
“they really ought to hang their heads for how stupid the industry made them appear.”
The fact that they went along with it all shows how stupid they actually are, regardless.