Obamacare 2.0: Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, and the Pharma Corruption of Trump Admin
(Era of Wisdom) Disclaimer: we don’t support the Affordable Care Act either.
A hurricane of restless competing interests, none really for the benefit of the people, have defined the first few months of Trump’s presidency.
The proposed replacement for Obamacare is being drafted by big pharma’s representatives in politics: recipients of hundreds of thousands of dollars from pharma corporations, namely Paul Ryan (Speaker of the House) and Congressman Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif).
It’s called the American Health Care Act (AHCA). We don’t really get to see what is in it yet, but those vying for power have privileged access to ponder it before us citizens.
Ryan and McCarthy created the bill. They are respectively the 2 House of Representatives members with the closest financial ties to big pharma.
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They each received over $200,000 from pharma corporations in the past 2 years, well documented at MapLight.org:
It’s more complex when you realize other corrupt people are in opposition to the healthcare bill. The AARP, American Medical Association (AMA) and other apparently competing bodies of power are speaking out against it. The same powers support the Affordable Care Act because it benefits their clique.
We don’t know much about the bill yet. If you research it, you’ll find some talk about “tax credits” and little of substance. At this moment it might be more useful to look at the finances and connections of those who wrote and are promoting the bill.
It gets confusing when you read about how Mike Pence has opposed coercive HPV vaccination in Indiana, yet is connected to Eli Lilly and said vaccinations are an important public health measure.
Vice President Mike Pence, a politician in Indiana for decades, has ties to Indiana’s gigantic pharmaceutical corporation Eli Lily & Co, the Prozac creators who have been rooted in the state’s politics for over a century. They have paid him at least $64,000. From Open Secrets:
Well summarized by the Daily Voice:
“Look no further than Vice-President Elect Mike Pence to see how Big Pharma has an impact on whether consumers will actually have a voice at the table when discussions and legislation are introduced. The pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co., which is based in his home state of Indiana, is Mike Pence’s third largest all-time political contributor, according to calculations by the independent Center for Responsive Politics.
Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House, from Wisconsin has also seen his coffers grew from Big Pharma. Pfizer Inc, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world kicked in over $63,000 this year alone for Ryan’s reelection campaign.”
Pfizer, Bank of America, and other powerstructure factors shape Paul Ryan as well. From Open Secrets:
It complicates things reading about people like Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) allegedly representing naturopaths and human rights with his defense of the targeted herb kratom in 2016, or his alleged defense of herbs and natural substances from FDA or DEA regulation.
But the truth is, Orrin Hatch receives possibly the most money from big pharma of any politician in the Senate, as Ryan and McCarthy received the most money from them in the House of Representatives. Hatch is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
We exposed Orrin Hatch in this video last year after he improved his reputation by defending kratom, while being a complete hypocrite with his other actions.
Hatch just happened to have something to say about this bill. According to National Post:
“’We just have to work through it all,’ said Senate Finance 
Chairman Orrin Hatch, downplaying the amount of turmoil. But he added what already now seems obvious. ‘The bill as presented is not the final bill.’”
Politicians and power players do this thing where they pretend to be in opposition to something, and then turn around and do the opposite.
As with many things in life, the foxes are guarding the hen house. It always seems to be an effective strategy for them today, for roles of power to be completely and totally inverted from their stated purpose.
You could say every one of these people are corrupt and none of them represent our class of people. They are only opposing their individual health bills for their own benefit.
So what can we do about Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy and all of the power players representing pharma in Washington?
If we go out of our way to share this info with people, we can help foster a culture of people paying attention to who actually runs things.
Only a culture of actively paying attention can build our resilience to coercion, to guard our right to medical choice and whatever other kind of choice.
For more info, here are some recent articles about the pharma tied politicians. They aren’t that informative: we advise researching this yourself. Type in anything to your search engine and just start researching.
“Rand Paul: Ryan ‘trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the president’ on ObamaCare replacement“
“How Big Pharma is Paying to Get Their Say in the Trump Administration“
“Big Pharma poised to help Trump shape his healthcare agenda“
“House Speaker Paul Ryan says ‘I have no doubt we’ll pass’ Obamacare replacement“
And if you want to know who big pharma is and how they came to be, this is our documentary about it.
This article (Obamacare 2.0: Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, and the Pharma Corruption of Trump Admin) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Era of Wisdom.org.
