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Michael Briggs: (202) 228-6492
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Tuesday joined a rally with People's Action at the headquarters of the pharmaceutical industry's D.C. lobbying operation to protest the drug companies' relentless pursuit of profits at the expense of everyday people and their fierce opposition to the budget reconciliation bill that will lower the costs of prescription drugs.
Sanders' remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Tuesday joined a rally with People's Action at the headquarters of the pharmaceutical industry's D.C. lobbying operation to protest the drug companies' relentless pursuit of profits at the expense of everyday people and their fierce opposition to the budget reconciliation bill that will lower the costs of prescription drugs.
Sanders' remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below:
"I have no doubt that within pharmaceutical companies there are some wonderful scientists who are doing extraordinary and amazing work researching innovative new drugs to save and improve lives.
"But let's be very clear. The overriding motivation of the pharmaceutical industry is greed. Their overriding goal is to make as much money as they can by squeezing as much as they possibly can out of the sick, out of the elderly and out of the desperate.
"It's no great secret that we, in the United States of America, pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. In some cases, we pay ten times as much for prescription drugs as do the people in countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Australia.
"On two occasions, I have taken people over the border to Canada to purchase insulin and the breast cancer drug tamoxifen for one-tenth of the price that they were paying in the United States. I will never forget the tears in the eyes of women who were able to buy these life-saving drugs for a fraction of the price that they were paying in the U.S.
"In America today, nearly one out of every four Americans cannot afford the medications that their doctors prescribe. How insane is that?
"What this means is that millions of people get sicker, some end up in emergency rooms at great cost, and others unnecessarily lose their lives. That should not be happening in the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world.
"According to a study last year by epidemiologists at Yale University, some 68,000 Americans die each and every year because they cannot afford to get the health care that they need when they need it. While we do not know the exact number, there is no doubt that many thousands of Americans die every year because they cannot afford to fill their prescription drugs.
"In other words, the greed of the prescription drug industry is literally killing Americans.
"While millions of Americans cannot afford the outrageous price of prescription drugs, pharmaceutical companies are making obscene profits and paying their executives exorbitant compensation packages.
"Last year alone, the six largest drug companies in the U.S. made nearly $50 billion dollars in profits, while the ten highest paid pharmaceutical executives made over $500 million dollars in total compensation.
"And what does the pharmaceutical industry do with these profits?
"Well, over the past 20 years, they have spent over $4.5 billion on lobbying and hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions.
"They employ nearly 1,500 lobbyists in Washington, DC alone - including the former congressional leaders in both major political parties. Got that? That's almost three prescription drug lobbyists for every Member of Congress.
"Well, what do they get for that huge investment? They get to raise the price of prescription drugs at any time they want for any amount that they want. What that means is that the price that you were paying for your life-saving medication yesterday could literally double or triple overnight for no reason other than greed.
"In other words, the prescription drug industry, through their wealth and their power and their ability to bribe Members of Congress with massive campaign contributions can get away with ripping-off the American people by charging whatever outrageous price that the market will bear for prescription drugs.
"And today, as we speak, the prescription drug industry is at it again. They are spending many millions of dollars on campaign contributions, on TV ads and on lobbying in order to defeat the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that will finally lower the price of prescription drugs by giving Medicare the ability to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry.
"According to a Gallup poll that was done in June of this year, 81% of the American people support this policy because they understand that Medicare should not be paying twice as much for the same exact prescription drugs as the Veterans Administration.
"If the VA can negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies to substantially reduce the price of prescription drugs, you know what? We must empower Medicare to do so as well.
"For far too long, the business model of the pharmaceutical industry has been fraud.
"For far too long, it has not been Congress that has been regulating the pharmaceutical industry. It has been the pharmaceutical industry that has been regulating Congress.
"So, today, we tell the pharmaceutical industry: Your days of calling the shots in Washington, DC are over.
"All over this country, the American people are asking a simple question: How many people need to die, how many people need to get unnecessarily sicker before Congress is prepared to take on the greed of the prescription drug industry?
"Enough is enough. A life-saving prescription drug does not work if you cannot afford to buy it.
"Yes, we are going to pass the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.
"Yes, we are going to substantially reduce the outrageous price of prescription drugs in America.
"Yes, we are going to stand up to your greed.
"Yes, we are going to require Medicare to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry.
"And when we do that, by the way, we will not only reduce prescription drug prices in America, but we will use the savings to expand Medicare to cover eyeglasses, hearing aids and dental care - something that should have been done a long, long time ago."
"It is time for Dr. de la Torre to get off of his $40 million yacht and explain to the American people how much he has gained financially while bankrupting the hospitals he manages."
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday blasted Dr. Ralph de la Torre—the CEO of a bankrupt health services company "who has made hundreds of millions of dollars ripping off patients and healthcare providers"—for refusing to comply with a bipartisan subpoena compelling him to testify about his company's insolvency.
"Perhaps more than anyone else in America, Dr. de la Torre is the poster child for the type of outrageous corporate greed that is permeating through our for-profit healthcare system," said Sanders (I-Vt.), who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP).
"Working with private equity vultures, he became obscenely wealthy by loading up hospitals across the country with billions in debt and selling the land underneath these hospitals to real estate executives who charge unsustainably high rent," the senator added. "As a result, Steward Health Care, and the more than 30 hospitals it owns in eight states, were forced to declare bankruptcy with some $9 billion in debt."
Steward is trying to sell all 31 of its hospitals in order to pay down its debt.
As Common Dreamsreported on July 25, the HELP committee, which includes 10 Republicans, voted 20-1 to investigate Steward Health Care's bankruptcy, and 16-4 to subpoena de la Torre.
"I am now working with members of the HELP committee to determine the best path forward," Sanders said on Wednesday. "But let me be clear: We will not accept this postponement. Congress will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and for the damage he has caused to hospitals and patients throughout America. This committee intends to move forward aggressively to compel Dr. de la Torre to testify to the gross mismanagement of Steward Health Care."
"It is time for Dr. de la Torre to get off of his $40 million yacht and explain to the American people how much he has gained financially while bankrupting the hospitals he manages," Sanders added, referring to the 190-foot megayacht the CEO purchased as Steward hospitals failed to pay their bills.
Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)—a HELP committee member—and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also slammed de la Torre on Wednesday, calling his failure to appear before the panel "outrageous."
"De la Torre used hospitals as his personal piggy bank and lived in luxury while gutting Steward hospitals," the senators said. "De la Torre is as cowardly as he is cruel. He owes the public and Congress answers for his appalling greed—and de la Torre must be held in contempt if he fails to appear before the committee."
De la Torre's attorney, Alexander Merton, lashed out against the Senate subpoena Wednesday in a letter
accusing HELP committee members of being "determined to turn the hearing into a pseudo-criminal proceeding in which they use the time, not to gather facts, but to convict Dr. de la Torre in the eyes of public opinion."
The same day the HELP Committee voted to probe Steward and subpoena de la Torre, Markey and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, introduced the Health Over Wealth Act, which would increase the powers of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to block private equity deals in the healthcare industry.
Last month, Markey and Warren expressed concerns over the proposed $245 million sale of Steward Health Care's nationwide physician network to a private equity firm.
"Two Massachusetts hospitals are closing and communities are suffering because of private equity's looting of Steward," said Warren. "Selling Massachusetts doctors to another private equity firm could be a disaster. We can't make the same mistake again. Regulators must scrutinize this deal."
"We already know how devastating the Biden asylum shutdown is and it should be ended immediately rather than expanded," said one campaigner.
Two months after U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order barring migrants who cross the southern border without authorization from receiving asylum, senior administration officials are reportedly considering making the policy—which was meant to be temporary—much harder to lift.
Biden's June directive invoked Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act—previously used by the administration of former Republican President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, to deny migrants asylum—"when the southern border is overwhelmed."
The policy shuts down asylum requests when the average number of daily migrant encounters between ports of entry hits 2,500. Border entry points may allow migrants to seek asylum when the seven-day average dips below 1,500.
"The move to make the asylum restrictions semi-permanent would effectively rewrite U.S. asylum law."
The changes under consideration would reopen entry only after the seven-day average for migrant encounters remains under 1,500 for 28 days.
"The asylum ban itself is arbitrary and duplicative. It has no relation at all to a person's asylum claims, meaning even a person with an extraordinarily strong claim would be denied for crossing at a time when many others, potentially thousands of miles away, are doing the same," Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group, said Wednesday.
"There is no doubt that we need to rethink the current asylum system, which would include giving it an infusion of resources so that people don't have to wait five years for a decision," he continued. "But cutting it off to whole swathes of people for reasons unrelated to their claims isn't a fix."
"The move to make the asylum restrictions semi-permanent would effectively rewrite U.S. asylum law, which since it was created in 1980 has mandated that all people on U.S. soil be permitted to request humanitarian protections, regardless of how they got here," Reichlin-Melnick added.
U.S. officials say Biden's order has resulted in a dramatic decrease in asylum claims.
According toThe New York Times:
Since Mr. Biden's executive order went into effect, the number of arrests at the southern border has dropped precipitously. In June, more than 83,000 arrests were made, then in July the number went down further to just over 56,000 arrests. Arrests in August ticked up to 58,000, according to a homeland security official, but those figures still pale in comparison to the record figures in December when around 250,000 migrants crossed.
Migrant rights advocates condemned the new rules. Less than two weeks after Biden issued the order, a coalition of rights groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union sued the administration, arguing the policy was illegal and endangered migrant lives.
"We already know how devastating the Biden asylum shutdown is and it should be ended immediately rather than expanded," Amy Fischer, Amnesty International USA's director of refugee and migrants rights, said Wednesday on social media. "High numbers of people being denied their human rights is not a sign of success, it's a disgrace."
"Our kids are sitting in a classroom where they should be fulfilling their God-given potential, and some part of their big beautiful brain is concerned about a shooter busting through the door of their classroom," said the Democratic presidential nominee.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday addressed the fatal mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, and addressed the attack that left at least four people dead—two students and two teachers—and injured nine, calling it a "senseless tragedy on top of so many senseless tragedies."
"It's just outrageous that every day in our country in the United States of America, that parents have to send their children to school worried about whether or not their child will come home alive," Harris said at a campaign rally in New Hampshire that took place shortly after news of the shooting broke. "It doesn't have to be this way."
"This is just one of the things that's at stake in this election," Harris added.
President Joe Biden also spoke about the shooting, demanding that Republicans in Congress "finally say 'enough is enough' and work with Democrats to pass commonsense gun safety legislation."
"We must ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines once again, require safe storage of firearms, enact universal background checks, and end immunity for gun manufacturers," said Biden. "These measures will not bring those who were tragically killed today back, but it will help prevent more tragic gun violence from ripping more families apart."
The Biden-Harris administration has taken some action to prevent gun violence, including closing a loophole that had allowed firearms dealers to sell guns without running background checks on purchasers. Gun violence prevention advocates applauded the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022, but denounced Congress for not coming to an agreement on legislation that would require background checks for all gun purchases and ban assault weapons. The legislation banned gun sales to people convicted of domestic violence and funded state "red flag" programs to remove guns from people deemed a threat to themselves or others.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has vowed to appoint federal judges who oppose limits on firearm ownership and has called himself "the best friend gun owners have ever had in the White House."
Both Harris and Biden expressed concern for schoolchildren across the country who are coming of age in a country where mass shootings make national news several times per year and where lockdown drills are routine at school.
"Our kids are sitting in a classroom where they should be fulfilling their God-given potential, and some part of their big beautiful brain is concerned about a shooter busting through the door of their classroom," said Harris.
The gun violence prevention group Giffords shared an account from Apalachee High School senior Sergio Caldera, who was in his chemistry class when he heard gunshots and someone pounding on the classroom door.
"They prepare you for these things," Isabella Albes Cardenas, an 11th grade student at Apalachee High School, told The New York Times. "But in the moment, I started crying."
The student-led group Students Demand Action said that "back to school season should not come with the fear of being shot."
"We deserve to go to school and focus on our education, NOT fear for our lives," said the group. "We don't have to live and die like this. WE DEMAND ACTION."