After lobbying for ObamaCare, some members of Congress still are trying to do favors for Big Phrma. An article entitled The Inter Partes Review Process is Working, Even For Pharmaceuticals made the point that when Congress does favors for the drug industry the taxpayers get stuck with the tab.
Health care is increasingly expensive, thanks in part to government's continued and expanding intervention.
Look back at the Medicare Part D fight that established a program that pushed a massive new entitlement onto the American people as a great example of Republicans pushing for the Big Pharma agenda.
During the Obama years, we have ObamaCare as an example of Democrats doing the bidding of the drug industry.
Now lobbyists for the drug companies are back asking for a special carveout on something called the Inter Partes Review Process. This is a process that stops big companies from gaming the patent system to keep a patent for longer than allowed under current law or to try to file a bogus new patent on an old drug to continue to overcharge for the drug. Now that most of health care costs are taken on by the government (i.e. the taxpayer), any increase in the price of drugs will hit the consumers hard.
Big Pharma has invested at least $3 billion on lobbying and they want to take away the one tool that can empower taxpayers to challenge government-granted monopolies.
Thankfully, Congressman Bob Goodlatte and Senator Chuck Grassley, the House and Senate Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, get it. They have stood up against special interests in the past and should do it again. Big Phrma should stand on it's own two feet. The taxpayers shouldn't be forced to prop them up.
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