The Sleight-of-Hand, Short-Term Memory Deception of the Biden Administration on Prescription Drug Costs
President Biden took to the podium at the end of last month to rail on about the cost of prescription drugs, particularly the costs of insulin and injectable epinephrine, which delivers life-saving treatment to people suffering from severe allergic reactions. While Biden is right to be outraged, he disingenuously failed to mention that it was his executive order rescinding moves made by his predecessor that caused the outrageous pricing.
“Imagine being the parent, making minimum wage or twice the minimum wage, and having a child with Type I diabetes, knowing that you can’t – and having no insurance – knowing that if you can not get that money for the insulin the child might die,” Biden said in hushed tones.
“In addition to your child, “the President continued, “it strips you of your dignity, damnit! Can you imagine looking at your child and you know what they need and not be able to do it.”
He went on to call the situation “outrageous” alluding to the same predicament being true for the senior and homeless communities, playing on the short attention spans of many Americans while ginning up emotions to politically capitalize on a situation his administration created.
I say a predicament he created because Biden’s predecessor, President Trump, had in place an executive order that not only achieved lower prescription prices – and especially for insulin and EpiPens, but also held that institutions receiving federal grants to minister directly to those who live in poverty, the elderly and our veterans must pass all prescription drug savings on to the patients.
Section 3 of an executive order titled Access to Affordable Life-saving Medications, which was issued on July 24, 2020, states:
“Sec. 3. Improving the Availability of Insulin and Injectable Epinephrine for the Uninsured. To the extent permitted by law, the Secretary of Health & Human Services shall take action to ensure future grants available under section 330(e) of the Public Health Service Act, as amended, 42 USC 254b(e), are conditioned upon Federally Qualified Health Centers’ having established practices to make insulin and injectable epinephrine available at the discounted price paid by the FQHC grantee or sub-grantee under the 340B Prescription Drug Program (plus a minimal administration fee) to individuals with low incomes, as determined by the Secretary, who:
“(a) have a high cost-sharing requirement for either insulin or injectable epinephrine; (b) have a high unmet deductible; or (c) have no health care insurance.”
After signing the executive order, Trump said,
“The four orders I’m signing today will be on the prescription drug market in terms of pricing and everything else to make these medications affordable and accessible for all Americans...The first order will require federal community health centers to pass the giant discounts they received from drug companies on insulin and EpiPens directly to their patients...”
“Under this order, the price of insulin for affected patients will come down to just pennies a day, pennies a day from numbers that you weren’t even able to think about. It’s a massive cost savings.”
Yet, just days after President Biden was sworn into office, he froze Mr. Trump’s executive action, thus ending the discounts that had been mandated for these drugs. That action paved the way for a June 2021 rescinding of that executive order completely.
HHS administrators under President Trump insisted that the drug rule would benefit patients who struggle to pay for expensive insulin and allergy medication.
Mr. Biden’s rationale for rescinding the order focused on the prioritization of his administration’s response to the COVID pandemic, although it is unclear how rescinding an executive order and causing insulin and epinephrine prices to rise helped anyone.
Why This Is Important
The important point to pay attention to here is this. Going into the midterm elections with no accomplishments to show, Mr. Biden and his team are thumping a “problem” that they created; the high costs of insulin and injectable epinephrine.
In the Biden administration’s rush to negate everything the Trump administration accomplished – and in a record time, the Biden team froze and then eliminated executive action that dramatically helped those who desperately need insulin and injectable epinephrine but who couldn’t afford it.
But now, as we approach the midterm elections, Mr. Biden presents his Janus face, feigning concern for the very people he burdened with unnecessarily high costs for insulin and injectable epinephrine in hopes of creating an emotional response among those with no recollection of his inauguration gift to BigPharma; in hopes of gleaning votes for his sinking presidency.
I say feigning concern because while Biden has done nothing to actually repair the damage done by his revocation of Mr. Trump's pro-consumer prescription drug actions, he has found money enough to afford free crack pipes to drug addicts.
The Washington Free Beacon reported on February 7, 2022:
“The Biden administration is set to fund the distribution of crack pipes to drug addicts as part of its plan to advance "racial equity."
“The $30 million grant program, which closed applications Monday and will begin in May, will provide funds to nonprofits and local governments to help make drug use safer for addicts. Included in the grant, which is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, are funds for ‘smoking kits/supplies.’ A spokesman for the agency [said] that these kits will provide pipes for users to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and ‘any illicit substance.’”
So, Mr. Biden’s handlers trot him out to the cameras to stumble over a script that attempts to gin-up emotions for the midterm elections over the insanely high insulin and injectable epinephrine prices – as though he can do nothing about it (which is a bald-faced lie), while finding money to give addicts free drug paraphernalia so they can more easily continue their fatalistic drug habits...with our tax dollars?!?
People afflicted with diabetes who need insulin, and those with allergies who need the quick action of life-saving injectable epinephrine, should be the priority for the Biden administration. But that is not the case. Instead, they are using taxpayer dollars to place drug addicts ahead of diabetics and anaphylaxis patients and doing so while doing nothing to truly elevate the addicts out of addictions.
Mr. Biden, his team, and congressional Democrats want the American people to trust them when it comes to healthcare and especially when it comes to the unvetted COVID vaccines. Yet they have proven beyond doubt that healthcare is simply a political matter to them.
Only a fool would trust these people.
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