Now all of these numbers and companies are just hypotheticals. But it could be that cozy, Kiss My Ass (KMA) insurance and F*ck yoU PhRMA make out, Joe pays or dies.

You’ve identified the problem nicely, though it would seem that in your scenario (with Ki$$ My A$$ Insurance Co having F*ck youU PhRMA in its investment portfolio in order to benefit from dividends and increased market cap), Ki$$ My A$$ Insurance Co would have to have insiders’ knowledge – material non-public information – of F*ck youU PhRMA’s potential product lines between the time of the successful completion of testing and final approval for sale and distribution, no?

For example, take a look at this 5-year chart for the stock of Cell Therapeutics. This company’s stock literally went from trading at $300 per share five years ago, to $150, to $50-$60, to trade now at around $1 a share. They don’t/can’t offer dividends. To the best of my knowledge, that’s because several of their potential products failed to get approval, despite earlier hype about potential.

But I agree re your proposed solution: the wingnuts would have aneurisms!

Like this:

Joe has health insurance with KMA insurance company.
He needs a biological drug called Savelife that costs $60,000 a year made by FU PhRMA company. He has a 20% copay, so he’s on the hook for $1,000 a month.

FU PhRMA manufactures the drug at a cost of $1,000 a month, including recovering the cost of 14 years development it took to being Savelife to market.

KMA insurance pays FU PhRMA $4,000 a month for Joe’s Savelife. FU PhRMA is part of KMA insurance’s investment portfolio, so KMA benefits from FU PhRMA’s dividend and increased market cap from their successful marketing of Savelife to all the Joes whose lives are saved.

Now all of these numbers and companies are just hypotheticals. But it could be that cozy, Kiss My Ass (KMA) insurance and F*ck yoU PhRMA make out, Joe pays or dies.

Wingnuts would have aneurisms, but FU PhRMA could be limited to 100% mark up for SGA, profit, etc. FU PhRMA would still be seeing a nice return for developing Savelife, KMA actually pays some of the production cost of the medicine…

The giant hole is “not including a modification to the structure of the biological product”, which can include things like PEGylation, a relatively simple process that makes a large protein more active.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I’ve been away for a while.

Do Insurance Companies and Big Pharma bribes trump Majority Rule is this a Democracy or a Corporationocracy?

Corporationocracy? ;-) I’d go with plutocracy. Majority rule and democracy only work when people know what their interests are, when people aren’t tricked into acting against their own interests, and when the rights of minorities are protected. Our democracy seems to be failing on all three counts because, as you say, the plutocrats abuse their power to feed their insatiable avarice.

Are you SURE Eshoo’s bill prohibits evergreening in the changes you list above?

I thought I’d read from Jon Walker or someone else (DDAY?) that evergreening is NOT prohibited in changes in route of admin, DOSING schedule (ie: twice a day w/ NEW dose stronger for ONCE a day = new patent), etc. due to a loophole in Eshoo’s amendment?

Bottom line, though, we agree the amendment is bad policy, bad politics, bad healthcare and bad news! Grrr, them damned politicians!