PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC HEALTH IS DRIVEN BY THE US AND IT IS ALL WRITTEN INTO THESE TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACTS. THIS PACT WAS INITIATED BY BUSH AND CLINTON AND NOW OBAMA AND THE CLINTONS ARE OVERSEAS WITH US NEO-LIBERALS TRYING TO FORCE NATIONS ALL OVER THE WORLD TO SIGN A PACT THAT IS REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BAD FOR ALL CITIZENS INVOLVED. WE HAVE A DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTROLLED BY NEO-LIBERALS AND SO DOES MARYLAND. ALL THE CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND WILL EMBRACE TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT AND THE DISMANTLING OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR IS PART OF THIS.
For those that believe the hype about bringing jobs, remember what NAFTA did----it decimated our economy and TPP be worse!
The You Tube video below shows a good view of the concerns for public health in the US. You can see that Affordable Care Act is an extension of what this TPP requires of all nations. I will take this week to look at all public sectors to see what TPP will do to our rights as citizens and how it moves the US from second world now to third world after TPP is installed. Keep in mind that protests like this are happening all over the world and in the US but in Maryland------
NO ONE KNOWS WHAT IS HAPPENING BECAUSE THE MEDIA AND POLITICIANS ARE ALL CAPTURED AND WORKING FOR GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.
TPP protests hit Utah
www.youtube.com
Published on Nov 19, 2013
The lead negotiators for 12 countries involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership began meeting today in Salt Lake City, Utah. The TPP is a potential new trade deal that would open up markets among nations along the Pacific Rim. The negotiations have largely been secretive so far, but the agreement is expected to impact jobs, the environment, consumer safety and more. Last week, transparency organization WikiLeaks published leaked chapters of the TPP covering intellectual patents, and the organization's co-founder, Julian Assange, slammed the deal. Ameera David speaks with RT's Ramon Galindo, who is in Salt Lake City and attended demonstrations today against the TPP agreement.
This video is from 6 months ago.....Obama is traveling overseas to firm up this deal. If you think all of this buzz is hyperbole you need to learn about what TPP does. It sets US law in a way that gives corporations all the power of profit in all nations involved and the laws written and signed into affect by this treaty can only be changed by a global corporate tribunal.
IT ENDS OUR STATUS AS CITIZEN, OUR EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER LAW, OUR BILL OF RIGHTS AND THIS IS WHY WE ARE SEEING OUR WEALTH STOLEN, OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES AND RIGHTS OPENLY ABUSED....TPP IS ILLEGAL AND A COUP AGAINST THE US CONSTITUTION AS IT ASSAULTS OUR RIGHTS AS CITIZENS.
If your pol is not shouting this-----they are neo-liberals who intend on embracing TPP. Cindy Walsh for Governor of Maryland is the only candidate in the race that will use the governor's office to fight back and stop the TPP structures already being built in Maryland. We must return to a domestic economy. CONGRESS AND STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING....THIS IS WHY THEY ARE PRIVATIZING ALL THAT IS PUBLIC GIVING GLOBAL CORPORATIONS COMPLETE CONTROL IN OUR STATE AND CITY.
It's important to think about the fact that all of these TPP negotiations have taken place during all of Obama's terms in office and Congress knew these terms on health care because I KNEW THESE TERMS ON HEALTH CARE.....I AM JUST AN AVERAGE CITIZEN THAT DOES RESEARCH. DO NOT LISTEN TO YOUR POLS AT STATE AND NATIONAL LEVELS TELL YOU THEY WERE IN THE DARK.
TPP would make health care even more expensive, less accountable, less accessible
June 21, 2013 Green Party
Health Council of the General Welfare Branch
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a deal that is being secretly negotiated by the White House, with help from more than 600 corporate advisors, and Pacific Rim nations including Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Chile, Peru, Australia and New Zealand. While the TPP is being called a trade agreement, the United States already has trade agreements covering 90 percent of the GDP of the countries involved in the talks. Instead, the TPP is a major power grab by large corporations.
The text of the TPP includes 29 chapters, only five of which concern trade. The remaining chapters are focused on changes that multinational corporations have not been able to pass in Congress such as restrictions on internet privacy, increased patent protections, greater access to litigation and further financial deregulation.
So far, all that is known about the contents of the TPP is from documents that have been leaked and reports from non-governmental organizations and industry meetings. Unlike other trade deals, the White House refuses to make the text available to the public. In fact, the negotiators refuse to publish the text until four years after it is signed into law.
From the information available, one thing is clear about the impacts of the TPP on health care. The intention of the TPP is to enhance and protect the profits of medical and pharmaceutical corporations without regard for the harmful effects their policies will have on human health.
We know that the TPP will extend pharmaceutical and medical device patents and provide other tools to keep the prices of these necessities high. This will make medications and treatments unaffordable for millions of people and raise the costs of national health programs, including public health systems in the U.S.. At its worst, the TPP will provide a pathway to infect the world’s health systems with the deadly parasite of for-profit health corporations that plague the United States.
The major health threats posed by the TPP include:
Therefore, the Health Council of the Green Shadow Cabinet opposes provisions within the TransPacific Partnership that make profit more important than public health. We oppose all provisions that restrict access to necessary medications, medical tests and treatments. Rather than the expansion of patent protections, there should be increased sharing of medical knowledge to promote improved global public health.
~ The Health Council is led by Secretary of Health Dr. Margaret Flowers, serving within the General Welfare Branch of the Green Shadow Cabinet. This statement is one of over a dozen issued in support of the Green Shadow Cabinet's June 17th call for action against the TPP.
____________________________________________
Let's look locally to see how TPP drives Maryland health care reform. Maryland is the only state in the nation that seeks exemption from Medicare and is given it. This means that there is no Federal oversight or requirements that have to be met. This is why Medicare is handled in Maryland as all health care----it is tiered rather than universal as the Federal program requires. Maryland has spent these two terms under O'Malley dismantling public health and building private non-profit and corporate structures to handle public sector health care and it is building what is a clinic system for the lower/middle class that is modeled on third world clinic care. Mind you, the working class and middle class that were driven into poverty from this massive fraud and now the capture of our economy with deliberate high unemployment has moved over 70% and rising of US citizens into or near poverty and they plan to keep pushing more into poverty. So, this clinic care overage that is mostly preventative care will pertain to almost all US citizens. Remember, public and private health plans are going to be sent to these state health systems as are Medicare and Medicaid and you will only received the amount of care your income category places you. Medicare gives equal levels of care to all citizens because people pay their whole lives into Social Security and Medicare.
TO PROTECT AGAINST THIS DISMANTLING OF OUR FEDERAL HEALTH PROGRAMS WE MUST MOVE FROM THIS PRIVATE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM TO EXPANDED AND IMPROVED MEDICARE FOR ALL. OTHER STATES HAVE ALREADY MOVED THIS WAY AND MARYLAND NEEDS TO AS WELL.
No matter how much they tell you all of this clinic care is going to make things easier and offer more access-----THEY ARE LYING.
The TPP’s Threats
to Public Health
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is an international trade and investment pact currently under
negotiation between the United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico,
New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. It is also specifically intended as a “docking agreement”
that other countries would join over time, with Japan, Korea, China and others already expressing some
interest. U.S. negotiators are pushing to complete the TPP as soon as possible.
NEGOTIATIONS ARE HEADED IN THE WRONG DIRECTION ON PUBLIC HEALTH
A roll back from the Bush administration. Leaked U.S. proposals for several chapters in the Trans-
Pacific Partnership reveal that U.S. trade negotiators have reversed hard-won reforms designed to
enhance access to affordable medicines that were made during the George W. Bush administration. In
addition to pushing for increased monopoly rights for drug companies, the U.S. is also demanding new
rights for pharmaceutical firms to challenge pricing and other drug formulary policies used by many
countries to keep down health care costs.
PACT WOULD REDUCE ACCESS TO GENERIC MEDICATION BY EXTENDING DRUG PATENTS
Access to generic medicine is critical to saving lives. The first generation of HIV drugs has come
down in price from roughly $10,000 per patient per year to just $120 thanks to increased access to
generic medications. This reduction in price has helped to dramatically scale up the number of people
throughout the world who are now receiving treatment. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis
and Malaria, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, UNITAID and UNICEF all rely heavily on
access to quality generic medications. For millions of people throughout the globe, delaying access to
generic medications means delaying access to treatment.
The U.S. proposal would grant new monopoly patent rights, reducing access to generic
medicine. If finalized and implemented, the leaked U.S. intellectual property proposal would roll back
access to generic medicine for people in
developing countries and throughout the
world. Specifically, the U.S. proposal would
broaden the scope of patentability by making
it easier for pharmaceutical companies to
patent new uses and minor variations of old
medicines; slow the production of new
generics when patents expire by expanding
“data exclusivity” over clinical trials forcing
either the timely and costly replication of such
trials or an additional three-year delay
(beyond the current five) before such
“exclusivity” ends; constrict safeguards
against patent abuse by making it harder for
public health advocates to challenge
unjustified new patents; require new forms of
drug patent policing; and mandate that
countries allow patents on plants, animals
Trade Policy & Access to Medicine
and surgical methods. The U.S. is expected to also request extensions beyond existing 20-year drug
patents to “compensate” drug companies for time spent in regulatory approval processes.
International public health advocates are speaking out. According to Doctors Without
Borders/Medecins San Frontieres: “Access to affordable lifesaving medicines will be threatened where
they are needed most — in parts of the developing world — if the U.S. insists on implementing
restrictive intellectual property policies in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement... The leaked
USTR position paper, now available to the public, reveals that the U.S. is pushing its trade partners,
including developing countries, to effectively lower the bar for granting patents, limit the capacity to
challenge patents, and impose new forms of intellectual property enforcement — all measures that
delay the introduction of more affordable generic drugs.”
EMPOWERING DRUG COMPANIES TO ATTACK COST-SAVING DRUG FORMULARIES
Governments use cost-saving drug formularies keep drug prices in check. Governments use
formularies to control health costs by listing medicines approved for government purchase or
reimbursement, and negotiating with drug firms to obtain the lowest prices. Among the current TPP
countries, such formularies are most associated with New Zealand’s Pharmaceutical Management
Agency (PHARMAC) and Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), but they are also used by
other governments, including a number of federal and state-based programs in the United States.
The U.S. proposal seeks to restrict cost-saving drug formularies. The leaked U.S. proposal for a pharmaceutical pricing chapter restricts the use of such formularies, by requiring that countries set up
new administrative and judicial appeal systems to help determine whether government programs
“appropriately recognize the value” of drug patents in their reimbursement proposals. In Australia, the only country yet to implement such systems under a trade agreement, the result has been higher drug
prices.
NEGOTIATIONS HAVE BEEN TAKING PLACE IN THE
SHADOWS
The Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations have not
been transparent. Access to medicine has received the
attention it has because the U.S. proposals for
intellectual property and pharmaceutical pricing chapters
for the pact have been leaked. Neither of these, nor any
other negotiating texts, has been officially released. This
is completely undemocratic, and also outside the norm
for many international negotiations, including those at the
World Trade Organization, where draft negotiating texts
are regularly published. This excessive secrecy makes it
extremely difficult for civil society to comment on the
negotiations in a productive way while the pact is still
under negotiation and such comments could be valuable.
Learn more & get involved: www.citizenstrade.org
_________________________________________
The Affordable Care Act specifically states that Medicare PHARMA will now be generic in many cases and as we read above TPP seeks to greatly limit generics. So, if policy pushes seniors towards using generics at the same time policy works to protect Brand names from generics-----
YOU SEE WHERE THIS WILL LEAD. MOST PEOPLE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO AFFORD NAME BRAND AND THE NUMBER OF GENERICS WILL BE VERY LIMITED AND RESTRICTED TO THE OLDEST OF FORMULAS.
Below you see what ACA promises as all over the world we know the opposite is planned with TPP. I have a friend already affectived negatively by having to leave a brand name drug for a generic that does not work as well. This will be wide-spread and people will die from simple lack of access to common drugs.
SELLING THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
Thousands in Savings by Providing Discounts in the Medicare “Donut Hole”
o More than 8 million seniors in 2007 hit the “donut hole,” or gap in prescription drug coverage in Medicare Part D. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will provide low and middle-income seniors a 50 percent discount on brand-name drug and biologic prices in the donut hole. It will also shrink the gap by $500 per senior for 2010.
More Affordable Generic Drugs
o Some cutting edge drugs are simply too expensive for many seniors. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will create a pathway for the approval of generic biologic drugs to improve affordability of medications for seniors and all Americans.
Better preventative care for seniors and the poor! Well, if all these groups will be able to access is preventative care -----will this be better?
OF COURSE NOT----THEY ARE SIMPLY BUILDING A STRUCTURE THAT A SUPER-MAJORITY OF AMERICANS WILL BE PUSHED TO.
Aren't neo-liberals just great allowing the American people the chance to buy yet another health insurance policy directed at long-term care? The Social Security Disability program is being allowed to be gutted and emptied through fraud in the trillions of dollars and it will end. Where will all those people with disabilities go? Well, if you cannot afford yet another insurance policy you will see longevity fall steeply in America in just one generation.
IT TAKES A SPECIAL KING OF PERSON TO PUSH THIS AS POLICY ALL BECAUSE MEDICARE AND MEDICAID WAS GUTTED WITH FRAUD AND PROFITEERING AND NOW THESE HEALTH INSTITUTIONS NEED MORE PROFITS.
In Maryland the driver of these policies and in fact the institution writing these policies is Johns Hopkins University. Mind you, they have made themselves a global health system through these massive frauds.
Preventive Care for Better Health
o Today, seniors must pay 20 percent of the cost of many preventive services. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will eliminate deductibles, copayments, and other cost-sharing for preventive care, and provide free annual wellness check-ups.
Affordable Long-Term Care
o Sixty-five percent of seniors need long-term services at home, at an average cost of $18,000 each year. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will create a voluntary long-term care insurance program, which will provide a cash benefit to help seniors and people with disabilities obtain services and supports that will enable them to remain in their homes and communities.
_______________________________________________
The idea of the Affordable Care Act is to deregulate and dismantle all the public oversight of health care so that the industry can act with impunity just as banks do. So, health care once controlled within the confines of medical professionals are now handed to private corporations acting as clinic care and of course this will be the only access for the middle-working class families not able to afford the Silver or higher health plans.
That goal of deregulation takes the form of placing health care everywhere-----at the same time public justice and oversight and accountability is dismantled meaning the public never knows if care is happening or where the money went. I further devolves the US into this third world systemic fraud and corruption this time with our health care. People will die because tons of money is misappropriated and stolen and people will not have equal access rights as people will be denied for any reason. THAT'S WHAT LOSING EQUAL PROTECTION IS ALL ABOUT!
When you read that 30 million people will be entering the system it is mostly the people mandated to buy insurance with no protections on how high those insurance rates will go----and they will go high.
MANDATED TO BUY INSURANCE THAT ONLY ALLOWS YOU ACCESS TO PREVENTATIVE CARE AND THEN THOSE RATES CAN SOAR.....
PEOPLE WILL BE BANKRUPTED IN NO TIME AND LIVE IN POVERTY IF THEY TRY TO ACCESS ORDINARY MEDICAL PROCEDURES.
The Affordable Care Act Will Drive Retail Pharmacies To Higher Profits
Nov. 14, 2013 6:23 PM ET | Includes: ABC, CVS, ESRX, RAD, WAG Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. (More...)
It's been a good year for the three major retail pharmacy chains: YTD CVS Caremark (CVS) is up 31%, Walgreen Co. (WAG) is up 61%, and Rite Aid (RAD) has soared 286%. With more generic drugs coming to market and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) less than two months away, retail pharmacy chains are gearing up to welcome what is expected to be an onslaught of newly insured Americans. With the changes in healthcare, pharmacy chains are expanding their reach to become a one-stop healthcare shop for not just prescriptions, but for other medical needs such as flu shots and minor injuries. Soon these retail pharmacies will further encroach on an area where physicians once had the monopoly: managing chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma. This strategy should add to more revenue for the pharmacy chains with both CVS and Walgreen leading the way.
Adam J. Fein, a healthcare industry consultant who runs the Drug Channels blog, sees changes coming to the way people are currently treated. "Retail competition is coming to healthcare, and pharmacies are on the leading edge." According to the Congressional Budget Office, healthcare spending in America will balloon to 22% of gross domestic product in 2038, from 16.4% in 2011. That means that healthcare spending will account for more than a fifth of the economy, and retail pharmacies are looking for a larger piece of the pie as they move beyond filling prescriptions.
ACA -- Making Pharmacies A One Stop Shop
The government's ACA will bring in approximately 30 million newly insured customers into the healthcare system. Walgreen, CVS, and Rite aid recognize that the millions of people who stand to gain health insurance represent an opportunity for increased pharmacy business in all aspects of the store from drugs to personal products to acute medical needs. To insure a share of the new found customer base, the pharmacy companies have been working closely with the government in promoting uninsured customers to sign up for health insurance with the goal of having them visit the pharmacy clinic and load their baskets with front end merchandise.
____________________________________________
Raise your hand if you understand that policy with a goal of consolidating and deregulating the health industry combined with mandated purchase of insurance would lead to insurance industry capture of the American people! EVERYONE
THESE POLS ARE NOT FIGHTING IT----THEY VOTED THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT INTO PLACE KNOWING THAT THIS WOULD HAPPEN.
It is just as when neo-liberals with Clinton broke the Glass Steagall wall and passed NAFTA killing the middle-class and creating unaccountable global corporations.
THE SAME POLS IN OFFICE NOW DID THAT THEN AND WE KEEP VOTING THEM BACK INTO OFFICE!
In Maryland that is Cardin, Sarbanes, Cummings, Hoyer still in office from moving the US from first world to second world and now working to send the US to third world.
Remember, the Trans Pacific Trade Pact specifically states that any national law that interferes with corporate profit will be ignored by global corporations. So, any law passed that supposedly controls cost will not legally stand when TPP is passed. A deregulated insurance industry will soak Americans for all they are worth.
'Powerful corporate interests want to use the TPP to:
- Offshore good-paying jobs to low-wage nations and undercut working conditions globally and further reducing wages in the United States
- Create new tools for attacking environmental, health, labor and consumer safety standards
- Expand the deregulation of banks, hedge funds and insurance companies
- Further concentrate global food supplies, displacing family farmers and subjecting consumers to wild price fluctuations
- Institute longer patents that restrict access to affordable, generic medications'
Health Insurance Premiums Are Soaring as Industry Profits Continue to Rise - Sen. Feinstein, Rep. Schakowsky, Maine Insurance Superintendent and State Insurance Experts Say Regulation Works to Hold Down Rate Increases
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 General News MED INDIA
Who: Sen. Dianne Feinstein
Rep. Jan Schakowsky
Mila Kofman - Maine Insurance Superintendent
Harvey Rosenfield and Carmen Balber - Consumer Watchdog
What: Newsmaker Briefing: "How Health Insurance Rate Regulation Can Lower Premiums and Save Health Reform"
When: 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 11.
Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Schakowsky will open the briefing
Where: 116 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Constitution Ave and 1st St NE, Washington, D.C.
Join Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Schakowsky, Maine's top insurance regulator and state insurance experts to discuss spiraling health insurance rate increases and how regulation can hold down costs for consumers at a Consumer Watchdog briefing Wednesday afternoon on Capitol Hill.
Consumer Watchdog will also release a new report that examines health insurance rate regulation in the states, and finds that states that are instituting or strengthening laws requiring rate review and approval, including New York, Massachusetts and Maine, are seeing cost-control results.
Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Schakowsky introduced legislation in the 112th Congress to require HHS or the states to reject excessive or unjustified health insurance rates.
Maine Insurance Superintendent Mila Kofman has used that state's law to conduct comprehensive reviews of rate increases -- including public hearings, consumer intervenors and transparency requirements -- to protect consumers from millions in unnecessary rate increases.
Consumer Watchdog founder Harvey Rosenfield wrote California's model law for review and prior approval of property casualty insurance rates that has saved drivers $62 billion.
Consumer Watchdog Washington, DDCD director Carmen Balber will outline HHS regulations from the federal health reform law requiring review of unreasonable rate increases, and highlight regulatory successes and failures in other states.
Health insurance premiums increased 138% in the last decade while medical inflation rose just 31%. 1st quarter 2011 financial reports show health insurance industry profits are on track to beat last year's huge results. Consumer Watchdog's report finds that, if premium increases continue unchecked, health reform will fail in its primary goal of expanding access to health insurance.
CONTACT: Carmen Balber, +1-202-629-3043, cell: +1-310-403-0284, Judy Dugan, cell +1-213-280-0175
/PRNewswire-USNewswire -- May 10, 2011/
SOURCE Consumer Watchdog
For those that believe the hype about bringing jobs, remember what NAFTA did----it decimated our economy and TPP be worse!
The You Tube video below shows a good view of the concerns for public health in the US. You can see that Affordable Care Act is an extension of what this TPP requires of all nations. I will take this week to look at all public sectors to see what TPP will do to our rights as citizens and how it moves the US from second world now to third world after TPP is installed. Keep in mind that protests like this are happening all over the world and in the US but in Maryland------
NO ONE KNOWS WHAT IS HAPPENING BECAUSE THE MEDIA AND POLITICIANS ARE ALL CAPTURED AND WORKING FOR GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.
TPP protests hit Utah
www.youtube.com
Published on Nov 19, 2013
The lead negotiators for 12 countries involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership began meeting today in Salt Lake City, Utah. The TPP is a potential new trade deal that would open up markets among nations along the Pacific Rim. The negotiations have largely been secretive so far, but the agreement is expected to impact jobs, the environment, consumer safety and more. Last week, transparency organization WikiLeaks published leaked chapters of the TPP covering intellectual patents, and the organization's co-founder, Julian Assange, slammed the deal. Ameera David speaks with RT's Ramon Galindo, who is in Salt Lake City and attended demonstrations today against the TPP agreement.
This video is from 6 months ago.....Obama is traveling overseas to firm up this deal. If you think all of this buzz is hyperbole you need to learn about what TPP does. It sets US law in a way that gives corporations all the power of profit in all nations involved and the laws written and signed into affect by this treaty can only be changed by a global corporate tribunal.
IT ENDS OUR STATUS AS CITIZEN, OUR EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER LAW, OUR BILL OF RIGHTS AND THIS IS WHY WE ARE SEEING OUR WEALTH STOLEN, OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES AND RIGHTS OPENLY ABUSED....TPP IS ILLEGAL AND A COUP AGAINST THE US CONSTITUTION AS IT ASSAULTS OUR RIGHTS AS CITIZENS.
If your pol is not shouting this-----they are neo-liberals who intend on embracing TPP. Cindy Walsh for Governor of Maryland is the only candidate in the race that will use the governor's office to fight back and stop the TPP structures already being built in Maryland. We must return to a domestic economy. CONGRESS AND STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING....THIS IS WHY THEY ARE PRIVATIZING ALL THAT IS PUBLIC GIVING GLOBAL CORPORATIONS COMPLETE CONTROL IN OUR STATE AND CITY.
It's important to think about the fact that all of these TPP negotiations have taken place during all of Obama's terms in office and Congress knew these terms on health care because I KNEW THESE TERMS ON HEALTH CARE.....I AM JUST AN AVERAGE CITIZEN THAT DOES RESEARCH. DO NOT LISTEN TO YOUR POLS AT STATE AND NATIONAL LEVELS TELL YOU THEY WERE IN THE DARK.
TPP would make health care even more expensive, less accountable, less accessible
June 21, 2013 Green Party
Health Council of the General Welfare Branch
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a deal that is being secretly negotiated by the White House, with help from more than 600 corporate advisors, and Pacific Rim nations including Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Chile, Peru, Australia and New Zealand. While the TPP is being called a trade agreement, the United States already has trade agreements covering 90 percent of the GDP of the countries involved in the talks. Instead, the TPP is a major power grab by large corporations.
The text of the TPP includes 29 chapters, only five of which concern trade. The remaining chapters are focused on changes that multinational corporations have not been able to pass in Congress such as restrictions on internet privacy, increased patent protections, greater access to litigation and further financial deregulation.
So far, all that is known about the contents of the TPP is from documents that have been leaked and reports from non-governmental organizations and industry meetings. Unlike other trade deals, the White House refuses to make the text available to the public. In fact, the negotiators refuse to publish the text until four years after it is signed into law.
From the information available, one thing is clear about the impacts of the TPP on health care. The intention of the TPP is to enhance and protect the profits of medical and pharmaceutical corporations without regard for the harmful effects their policies will have on human health.
We know that the TPP will extend pharmaceutical and medical device patents and provide other tools to keep the prices of these necessities high. This will make medications and treatments unaffordable for millions of people and raise the costs of national health programs, including public health systems in the U.S.. At its worst, the TPP will provide a pathway to infect the world’s health systems with the deadly parasite of for-profit health corporations that plague the United States.
The major health threats posed by the TPP include:
- Extensive patent protections. Through the TPP, pharmaceutical and medical device corporations are seeking extensive patent protections using a process known as ‘Evergreening.’ The TPP gives twenty years of patent protection for pharmaceuticals and medical devices; however, patents can be renewed for another twenty years each time there is a change in an indication or delivery.
- Doctors without Borders criticized this practice, stating that patent protections in previous trade agreements raised the price of life-saving medications and made them unavailable to people in poorer countries. Patents prevent the production of low cost generic forms of medications.
- Because of the negative impact on public health from patent protections in previous trade agreements, such as the Korea Free Trade Agreement, former President Bush rolled some of these practices back. Unfortunately, the TPP will move them forward again. In fact, the TPP goes farther to require patents on surgical techniques, medical tests and treatments.
- Prevention of necessary innovation. Doctors without Borders also expressed concern that patent protections encourage innovation based on profit instead of on the needs of people, particularly those in poor nations. Corporations do not see it as in their financial interest to address health conditions more prevalent in poor nations which do not have the financial resources to buy their products. But it is often in these situations where treatment can have the greatest impact on quality of life.
- Attack on public health systems. An area of great concern is language within the TPP concerning State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). These are institutions that are fully or partially owned by governments, which could include public health systems.
- Corporate lobbyists are concerned that SOEs have ‘unfair advantages’ over private industry. These advantages include government subsidies, preferred tax status, low finance rates and access to capital. According to a leaked chapter, corporate lobbyists believe that there is a conflict of interest because SOEs have political considerations such as functioning to provide basic goods and services for their population and believe that instead SOEs should operate strictly as commercial entities.
- The TPP requires SOEs to disclose any special advantages they receive and the government to give the same advantages to corporations. It also provides methods for corporations to sue governments if they believe that they are not being treated fairly.
- Text from a section of the TPP called “Annex on Transparency and Procedural Fairness for Healthcare Technologies” was leaked in June, 2011. It reveals that medical industries are pushing on all fronts to keep their prices and prevent public health systems from negotiating to keep prices affordable. To medical industries, price negotiation is one of the ‘unfair advantages’ of public health systems. When a public health system negotiates a lower price, it is said to be exerting its market power. On the flip side, when a government extends patent protections to medical industries, this is not considered to be a use of market power by the industry.
- Greater control over reimbursement. Medical industries are pushing for other concessions within the TPP to ‘level the playing field,” also known as forcing public entities to operate as market-based entities, such as factoring the cost of not just research, development and production of drugs and medical devices but also the cost of marketing them into what is considered to be a fair market price. And they only view prices negotiated without any government influence as fair. These provisions are significant because the TPP allows pharmaceutical corporations and others to challenge the legitimacy of any reimbursement decisions made by public health systems through the courts.
- Patent and price protections for multinational pharmaceutical and medical device corporations based in the U.S. will benefit their bottom line and their investor’s pockets, but may bounce back and undermine public health systems in the U.S.. The leaked text indicates that the above provisions only apply to health authorities under the jurisdiction of the federal government. However, the loop holes are large enough that all of the U.S. public health systems, which include Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare and the Veterans Health Administration, can arguably be considered to be federal.
Therefore, the Health Council of the Green Shadow Cabinet opposes provisions within the TransPacific Partnership that make profit more important than public health. We oppose all provisions that restrict access to necessary medications, medical tests and treatments. Rather than the expansion of patent protections, there should be increased sharing of medical knowledge to promote improved global public health.
~ The Health Council is led by Secretary of Health Dr. Margaret Flowers, serving within the General Welfare Branch of the Green Shadow Cabinet. This statement is one of over a dozen issued in support of the Green Shadow Cabinet's June 17th call for action against the TPP.
____________________________________________
Let's look locally to see how TPP drives Maryland health care reform. Maryland is the only state in the nation that seeks exemption from Medicare and is given it. This means that there is no Federal oversight or requirements that have to be met. This is why Medicare is handled in Maryland as all health care----it is tiered rather than universal as the Federal program requires. Maryland has spent these two terms under O'Malley dismantling public health and building private non-profit and corporate structures to handle public sector health care and it is building what is a clinic system for the lower/middle class that is modeled on third world clinic care. Mind you, the working class and middle class that were driven into poverty from this massive fraud and now the capture of our economy with deliberate high unemployment has moved over 70% and rising of US citizens into or near poverty and they plan to keep pushing more into poverty. So, this clinic care overage that is mostly preventative care will pertain to almost all US citizens. Remember, public and private health plans are going to be sent to these state health systems as are Medicare and Medicaid and you will only received the amount of care your income category places you. Medicare gives equal levels of care to all citizens because people pay their whole lives into Social Security and Medicare.
TO PROTECT AGAINST THIS DISMANTLING OF OUR FEDERAL HEALTH PROGRAMS WE MUST MOVE FROM THIS PRIVATE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM TO EXPANDED AND IMPROVED MEDICARE FOR ALL. OTHER STATES HAVE ALREADY MOVED THIS WAY AND MARYLAND NEEDS TO AS WELL.
No matter how much they tell you all of this clinic care is going to make things easier and offer more access-----THEY ARE LYING.
The TPP’s Threats
to Public Health
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is an international trade and investment pact currently under
negotiation between the United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico,
New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. It is also specifically intended as a “docking agreement”
that other countries would join over time, with Japan, Korea, China and others already expressing some
interest. U.S. negotiators are pushing to complete the TPP as soon as possible.
NEGOTIATIONS ARE HEADED IN THE WRONG DIRECTION ON PUBLIC HEALTH
A roll back from the Bush administration. Leaked U.S. proposals for several chapters in the Trans-
Pacific Partnership reveal that U.S. trade negotiators have reversed hard-won reforms designed to
enhance access to affordable medicines that were made during the George W. Bush administration. In
addition to pushing for increased monopoly rights for drug companies, the U.S. is also demanding new
rights for pharmaceutical firms to challenge pricing and other drug formulary policies used by many
countries to keep down health care costs.
PACT WOULD REDUCE ACCESS TO GENERIC MEDICATION BY EXTENDING DRUG PATENTS
Access to generic medicine is critical to saving lives. The first generation of HIV drugs has come
down in price from roughly $10,000 per patient per year to just $120 thanks to increased access to
generic medications. This reduction in price has helped to dramatically scale up the number of people
throughout the world who are now receiving treatment. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis
and Malaria, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, UNITAID and UNICEF all rely heavily on
access to quality generic medications. For millions of people throughout the globe, delaying access to
generic medications means delaying access to treatment.
The U.S. proposal would grant new monopoly patent rights, reducing access to generic
medicine. If finalized and implemented, the leaked U.S. intellectual property proposal would roll back
access to generic medicine for people in
developing countries and throughout the
world. Specifically, the U.S. proposal would
broaden the scope of patentability by making
it easier for pharmaceutical companies to
patent new uses and minor variations of old
medicines; slow the production of new
generics when patents expire by expanding
“data exclusivity” over clinical trials forcing
either the timely and costly replication of such
trials or an additional three-year delay
(beyond the current five) before such
“exclusivity” ends; constrict safeguards
against patent abuse by making it harder for
public health advocates to challenge
unjustified new patents; require new forms of
drug patent policing; and mandate that
countries allow patents on plants, animals
Trade Policy & Access to Medicine
and surgical methods. The U.S. is expected to also request extensions beyond existing 20-year drug
patents to “compensate” drug companies for time spent in regulatory approval processes.
International public health advocates are speaking out. According to Doctors Without
Borders/Medecins San Frontieres: “Access to affordable lifesaving medicines will be threatened where
they are needed most — in parts of the developing world — if the U.S. insists on implementing
restrictive intellectual property policies in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement... The leaked
USTR position paper, now available to the public, reveals that the U.S. is pushing its trade partners,
including developing countries, to effectively lower the bar for granting patents, limit the capacity to
challenge patents, and impose new forms of intellectual property enforcement — all measures that
delay the introduction of more affordable generic drugs.”
EMPOWERING DRUG COMPANIES TO ATTACK COST-SAVING DRUG FORMULARIES
Governments use cost-saving drug formularies keep drug prices in check. Governments use
formularies to control health costs by listing medicines approved for government purchase or
reimbursement, and negotiating with drug firms to obtain the lowest prices. Among the current TPP
countries, such formularies are most associated with New Zealand’s Pharmaceutical Management
Agency (PHARMAC) and Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), but they are also used by
other governments, including a number of federal and state-based programs in the United States.
The U.S. proposal seeks to restrict cost-saving drug formularies. The leaked U.S. proposal for a pharmaceutical pricing chapter restricts the use of such formularies, by requiring that countries set up
new administrative and judicial appeal systems to help determine whether government programs
“appropriately recognize the value” of drug patents in their reimbursement proposals. In Australia, the only country yet to implement such systems under a trade agreement, the result has been higher drug
prices.
NEGOTIATIONS HAVE BEEN TAKING PLACE IN THE
SHADOWS
The Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations have not
been transparent. Access to medicine has received the
attention it has because the U.S. proposals for
intellectual property and pharmaceutical pricing chapters
for the pact have been leaked. Neither of these, nor any
other negotiating texts, has been officially released. This
is completely undemocratic, and also outside the norm
for many international negotiations, including those at the
World Trade Organization, where draft negotiating texts
are regularly published. This excessive secrecy makes it
extremely difficult for civil society to comment on the
negotiations in a productive way while the pact is still
under negotiation and such comments could be valuable.
Learn more & get involved: www.citizenstrade.org
_________________________________________
The Affordable Care Act specifically states that Medicare PHARMA will now be generic in many cases and as we read above TPP seeks to greatly limit generics. So, if policy pushes seniors towards using generics at the same time policy works to protect Brand names from generics-----
YOU SEE WHERE THIS WILL LEAD. MOST PEOPLE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO AFFORD NAME BRAND AND THE NUMBER OF GENERICS WILL BE VERY LIMITED AND RESTRICTED TO THE OLDEST OF FORMULAS.
Below you see what ACA promises as all over the world we know the opposite is planned with TPP. I have a friend already affectived negatively by having to leave a brand name drug for a generic that does not work as well. This will be wide-spread and people will die from simple lack of access to common drugs.
SELLING THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
Thousands in Savings by Providing Discounts in the Medicare “Donut Hole”
o More than 8 million seniors in 2007 hit the “donut hole,” or gap in prescription drug coverage in Medicare Part D. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will provide low and middle-income seniors a 50 percent discount on brand-name drug and biologic prices in the donut hole. It will also shrink the gap by $500 per senior for 2010.
More Affordable Generic Drugs
o Some cutting edge drugs are simply too expensive for many seniors. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will create a pathway for the approval of generic biologic drugs to improve affordability of medications for seniors and all Americans.
Better preventative care for seniors and the poor! Well, if all these groups will be able to access is preventative care -----will this be better?
OF COURSE NOT----THEY ARE SIMPLY BUILDING A STRUCTURE THAT A SUPER-MAJORITY OF AMERICANS WILL BE PUSHED TO.
Aren't neo-liberals just great allowing the American people the chance to buy yet another health insurance policy directed at long-term care? The Social Security Disability program is being allowed to be gutted and emptied through fraud in the trillions of dollars and it will end. Where will all those people with disabilities go? Well, if you cannot afford yet another insurance policy you will see longevity fall steeply in America in just one generation.
IT TAKES A SPECIAL KING OF PERSON TO PUSH THIS AS POLICY ALL BECAUSE MEDICARE AND MEDICAID WAS GUTTED WITH FRAUD AND PROFITEERING AND NOW THESE HEALTH INSTITUTIONS NEED MORE PROFITS.
In Maryland the driver of these policies and in fact the institution writing these policies is Johns Hopkins University. Mind you, they have made themselves a global health system through these massive frauds.
Preventive Care for Better Health
o Today, seniors must pay 20 percent of the cost of many preventive services. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will eliminate deductibles, copayments, and other cost-sharing for preventive care, and provide free annual wellness check-ups.
Affordable Long-Term Care
o Sixty-five percent of seniors need long-term services at home, at an average cost of $18,000 each year. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will create a voluntary long-term care insurance program, which will provide a cash benefit to help seniors and people with disabilities obtain services and supports that will enable them to remain in their homes and communities.
_______________________________________________
The idea of the Affordable Care Act is to deregulate and dismantle all the public oversight of health care so that the industry can act with impunity just as banks do. So, health care once controlled within the confines of medical professionals are now handed to private corporations acting as clinic care and of course this will be the only access for the middle-working class families not able to afford the Silver or higher health plans.
That goal of deregulation takes the form of placing health care everywhere-----at the same time public justice and oversight and accountability is dismantled meaning the public never knows if care is happening or where the money went. I further devolves the US into this third world systemic fraud and corruption this time with our health care. People will die because tons of money is misappropriated and stolen and people will not have equal access rights as people will be denied for any reason. THAT'S WHAT LOSING EQUAL PROTECTION IS ALL ABOUT!
When you read that 30 million people will be entering the system it is mostly the people mandated to buy insurance with no protections on how high those insurance rates will go----and they will go high.
MANDATED TO BUY INSURANCE THAT ONLY ALLOWS YOU ACCESS TO PREVENTATIVE CARE AND THEN THOSE RATES CAN SOAR.....
PEOPLE WILL BE BANKRUPTED IN NO TIME AND LIVE IN POVERTY IF THEY TRY TO ACCESS ORDINARY MEDICAL PROCEDURES.
The Affordable Care Act Will Drive Retail Pharmacies To Higher Profits
Nov. 14, 2013 6:23 PM ET | Includes: ABC, CVS, ESRX, RAD, WAG Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. (More...)
It's been a good year for the three major retail pharmacy chains: YTD CVS Caremark (CVS) is up 31%, Walgreen Co. (WAG) is up 61%, and Rite Aid (RAD) has soared 286%. With more generic drugs coming to market and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) less than two months away, retail pharmacy chains are gearing up to welcome what is expected to be an onslaught of newly insured Americans. With the changes in healthcare, pharmacy chains are expanding their reach to become a one-stop healthcare shop for not just prescriptions, but for other medical needs such as flu shots and minor injuries. Soon these retail pharmacies will further encroach on an area where physicians once had the monopoly: managing chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma. This strategy should add to more revenue for the pharmacy chains with both CVS and Walgreen leading the way.
Adam J. Fein, a healthcare industry consultant who runs the Drug Channels blog, sees changes coming to the way people are currently treated. "Retail competition is coming to healthcare, and pharmacies are on the leading edge." According to the Congressional Budget Office, healthcare spending in America will balloon to 22% of gross domestic product in 2038, from 16.4% in 2011. That means that healthcare spending will account for more than a fifth of the economy, and retail pharmacies are looking for a larger piece of the pie as they move beyond filling prescriptions.
ACA -- Making Pharmacies A One Stop Shop
The government's ACA will bring in approximately 30 million newly insured customers into the healthcare system. Walgreen, CVS, and Rite aid recognize that the millions of people who stand to gain health insurance represent an opportunity for increased pharmacy business in all aspects of the store from drugs to personal products to acute medical needs. To insure a share of the new found customer base, the pharmacy companies have been working closely with the government in promoting uninsured customers to sign up for health insurance with the goal of having them visit the pharmacy clinic and load their baskets with front end merchandise.
____________________________________________
Raise your hand if you understand that policy with a goal of consolidating and deregulating the health industry combined with mandated purchase of insurance would lead to insurance industry capture of the American people! EVERYONE
THESE POLS ARE NOT FIGHTING IT----THEY VOTED THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT INTO PLACE KNOWING THAT THIS WOULD HAPPEN.
It is just as when neo-liberals with Clinton broke the Glass Steagall wall and passed NAFTA killing the middle-class and creating unaccountable global corporations.
THE SAME POLS IN OFFICE NOW DID THAT THEN AND WE KEEP VOTING THEM BACK INTO OFFICE!
In Maryland that is Cardin, Sarbanes, Cummings, Hoyer still in office from moving the US from first world to second world and now working to send the US to third world.
Remember, the Trans Pacific Trade Pact specifically states that any national law that interferes with corporate profit will be ignored by global corporations. So, any law passed that supposedly controls cost will not legally stand when TPP is passed. A deregulated insurance industry will soak Americans for all they are worth.
'Powerful corporate interests want to use the TPP to:
- Offshore good-paying jobs to low-wage nations and undercut working conditions globally and further reducing wages in the United States
- Create new tools for attacking environmental, health, labor and consumer safety standards
- Expand the deregulation of banks, hedge funds and insurance companies
- Further concentrate global food supplies, displacing family farmers and subjecting consumers to wild price fluctuations
- Institute longer patents that restrict access to affordable, generic medications'
Health Insurance Premiums Are Soaring as Industry Profits Continue to Rise - Sen. Feinstein, Rep. Schakowsky, Maine Insurance Superintendent and State Insurance Experts Say Regulation Works to Hold Down Rate Increases
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 General News MED INDIA
Who: Sen. Dianne Feinstein
Rep. Jan Schakowsky
Mila Kofman - Maine Insurance Superintendent
Harvey Rosenfield and Carmen Balber - Consumer Watchdog
What: Newsmaker Briefing: "How Health Insurance Rate Regulation Can Lower Premiums and Save Health Reform"
When: 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 11.
Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Schakowsky will open the briefing
Where: 116 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Constitution Ave and 1st St NE, Washington, D.C.
Join Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Schakowsky, Maine's top insurance regulator and state insurance experts to discuss spiraling health insurance rate increases and how regulation can hold down costs for consumers at a Consumer Watchdog briefing Wednesday afternoon on Capitol Hill.
Consumer Watchdog will also release a new report that examines health insurance rate regulation in the states, and finds that states that are instituting or strengthening laws requiring rate review and approval, including New York, Massachusetts and Maine, are seeing cost-control results.
Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Schakowsky introduced legislation in the 112th Congress to require HHS or the states to reject excessive or unjustified health insurance rates.
Maine Insurance Superintendent Mila Kofman has used that state's law to conduct comprehensive reviews of rate increases -- including public hearings, consumer intervenors and transparency requirements -- to protect consumers from millions in unnecessary rate increases.
Consumer Watchdog founder Harvey Rosenfield wrote California's model law for review and prior approval of property casualty insurance rates that has saved drivers $62 billion.
Consumer Watchdog Washington, DDCD director Carmen Balber will outline HHS regulations from the federal health reform law requiring review of unreasonable rate increases, and highlight regulatory successes and failures in other states.
Health insurance premiums increased 138% in the last decade while medical inflation rose just 31%. 1st quarter 2011 financial reports show health insurance industry profits are on track to beat last year's huge results. Consumer Watchdog's report finds that, if premium increases continue unchecked, health reform will fail in its primary goal of expanding access to health insurance.
CONTACT: Carmen Balber, +1-202-629-3043, cell: +1-310-403-0284, Judy Dugan, cell +1-213-280-0175
/PRNewswire-USNewswire -- May 10, 2011/
SOURCE Consumer Watchdog
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