Large drug manufacturers are working overtime to cut a backroom special interest deal with Congress, but Republicans should be wary.
That’s because PhRMA — the trade association representing Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson, and all the leading drug companies seeking government mandates on a slew of issues— is their enemy, not their friend. There’s a palpable money trail that demonstrates how this is so.
According to the American Accountability Foundation, between 2017 and 2022, PhRMA contributed nearly $10 million to groups that support Democratic candidates, $13 million to Democratic-aligned organizations, $600,000 to groups advancing the LGBTQ agenda, and $180,000 to illegal immigrant advocacy organizations. The reason is simple: PhRMA wants to sell more of its member companies’ products, and they know the Democrats’ goals of socialized medicine and healthcare social justice present the best prospect of big dollar signs.
PhRMA contributed over $5 million to organizations that either supported federal, state, and local vaccine mandates or that called for the removal of social media accounts that criticized these mandates. Is it any wonder why?
The major drug companies raked in $90 billion in profits from the COVID-19 vaccines, with the top 20 pharmaceutical companies amassing an eye-popping 19% profit margin and its shareholders making $1 million every 5 minutes during the pandemic. So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that PhRMA provided the funding for the Democrats’ push for big-government mandates that kept this gravy train flowing for them. What Republican in their right mind would use the levers of power to help PhRMA or its Democratic cronies out today?
COVID may have represented the tip of the iceberg for PhRMA’s unholy alliance with Democrats, but it was far from the first or the last time this partnership took hold.
PhRMA also bankrolls the Human Rights Campaign’s so-called Healthcare Equality Index, which measures the “equity and inclusion” of hospitals’ LGBTQ+ patients.
According to the scoring criteria, the index awards points to hospitals that display LGBT symbols, seek and utilize their patients’ politically correct pronouns, and hold events and training sessions on LGBT issues. But here’s the kicker (and the money maker): According to the Free Beacon, to receive a perfect score, “hospitals must also provide the same treatments for gender dysphoria that they provide for other medical conditions—meaning a hospital that uses puberty blockers to treat precocious puberty cannot withhold the drugs from children who say they’re transgender.”
Isn’t it convenient that the very companies that produce and profit off puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are the ones pushing the healthcare index that promotes the increased use of their products? It certainly is, but that’s PhRMA for you. They’re Democrats because that’s what’s profitable.
PhRMA is also predictably spending millions of dollars advocating for regulations that would increase drug costs by making it harder for Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), the groups employers and health plan sponsors hire to negotiate against the big drug companies, to function in the marketplace. Not surprisingly, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the most liberal member of the Senate, introduced the bill the trade group is pushing. With the blessing of both PhRMA and the PBM Accountability Project, which was in part founded by a labor-aligned healthcare advocacy group that PhRMA bankrolled and clogs the board of, why wouldn’t he? As conservative stalwarts like Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have argued, added regulations on PBMs will cost consumers. They will, however, make one of the biggest Democratic donors just a bit richer, and to Sen. Sanders and his congressional allies, that’s all that seems to matter.
PhRMA has every right to lobby and petition the government, but that doesn’t mean that Republicans must comply. They should inspect every proposal that PhRMA is pushing with a fine-tooth comb to ensure that they don’t violate their free-market principles because one thing’s for sure: this isn’t the same free-market-minded PhRMA of a few decades ago. This is a far more woke, self-calculated PhRMA, and the GOP must proceed with caution.
Kevin Mooney is an investigative reporter with The Daily Signal at The Heritage Foundation.