In August, the Department of Health and Human Services introduced 10 medication chosen for the primary spherical of Medicare worth negotiations—a landmark effort established by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to attempt to drag down the nation’s uniquely astronomical prescription drug costs.
Pharmaceutical corporations publicly balked—and in addition sued—then ultimately got here to the desk. But it was removed from their first protest of the Democrat-led effort to reform drug pricing within the US, which pays way more for prescribed drugs than different high-income nations.
In 2022, the pharmaceutical trade’s high lobbying group, PhRMA, gave a record $7.5 million to the GOP-linked dark money group, American Action Network (AAN), which spent thousands and thousands on promoting that yr opposing drug pricing reforms, a few of which made it into the Inflation Reduction Act.
The revelation was introduced by Issue One, a marketing campaign finance reform advocacy group that reviewed federal tax filings. Issue One additionally highlighted that the $7.5 million donation was the most important donation thus far that PhRMA has given AAN.
From 2010 to 2022, PhRMA has given the dark money group greater than $34.5 million. In 2016, PhRMA gave $6.1 million to AAN because it stealthily backed an aggressive Republican effort to attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which was finally unsuccessful.
“Public policymaking ought to be finished on behalf of the general public’s curiosity, and the forces concerned in policymaking ought to be working in daylight, not darkness,” Issue One CEO Nick Penniman stated within the announcement. “Unfortunately, our findings recommend that neither is true in relation to the pharmaceutical trade. That’s a disgrace for public well being, for presidency spending, and for Americans who can’t afford the medication they want.”
Dark money teams like AAN are politically energetic teams that aren’t required to disclose their donors publicly. But, sure donors—together with PhRMA—are required to report their contributions as expenditures on tax filings. Issue One obtained an annual tax submitting PhRMA submitted to the IRS final week.
Politico additionally reported that PhRMA gave $1.6 million in 2022 to the centrist dark money group Center Forward, which funneled money to Democratic lawmakers who hampered the get together’s drug pricing reform efforts.