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Health

Sen. Bernie Sanders Offers Plan To Lower Cost Of HIV Drugs

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on May 15, 2012 at 9:01 am

Because drug manufacturers waive their patent rights in developing nations in compliance with the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief, Americans have paid tens of thousands for the same HIV drugs that cost hundreds of dollars in Africa. The enormous cost burden — as much as $30,000 a year — makes it difficult for many HIV patients to keep up with drug regimens. But as Politico reports, a Senate subcommittee will hear a proposal by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to help lower the costs. Sanders’ plan would offer prize money instead of patent rights to companies that make new HIV drugs, so the medication would go straight to the generic market.

Drugmakers argue that they can’t make a profit without drug patents, which lets them charge less in developing nations, but “these costs can be a huge barrier to treatment,” said Mark Harrington, executive director of the Treatment Action Group.

The hearing will also look at the challenges faced by HIV patients without access to health care:

The challenge for uninsured HIV patients has worsened during the recession, as many states have taken steps to contain costs in the AIDS Drug Assistance Programs [ADAP] funded jointly by state and federal dollars. Many patient advocates are hopeful that the health reform law will get coverage to many low-income HIV patients if it goes into effect in 2014, but they worry that patients could still face high co-pays for specialty drugs and other gaps in coverage.

Even with the discount offered through ADAP programs, Ann Lefert, policy director at the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors, told Politico that it still costs an average of $10,000 per year for one patient. And some states have waiting lists for their ADAP programs or are taking steps to contain costs.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly three out of four Americans with HIV are not receiving enough medicine or regular health care “to stay healthy or prevent themselves from transmitting the virus to others.”

NEWS FLASH

Progressive Senators Introduce Bill That Would Force Regulator To Start Limiting Oil Speculation Within Two Weeks | Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), along with Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Al Franken (D-MN), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Bill Nelson (D-FL), unveiled legislation today that would force the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to begin limiting speculation in oil markets within the next two weeks. The CFTC was given the power to curb speculation in energy markets by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, but has yet to begin doing so. Gas prices at the moment are rising despite the lowest demand for oil since 1997, and many experts point to excessive speculation as the cause.

NEWS FLASH

Climate Hawk Senators Remind Washington Of Climate Crisis | In an hour-long discussion, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) rebuked the Senate for ignoring the climate crisis. The “planetary crisis of global warming” is “not getting the serious debate and discussion it needs here in the Senate,” Sanders began. Watch:

Update

Read an annotated transcript of Sen. Sanders’ closing remarks, courtesy of 350.org:
Read more

By Brad Johnson on Feb 16, 2012 at 12:15 pm

NEWS FLASH

Bernie Sanders And Climate Activists Blow The Whistle On Congressional Oil Corruption | At a rally in front of the U.S. Capitol, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) joined 350.org founder Bill McKibben and hundreds of climate activists to “blow the whistle” on big oil’s corruption of our political process, including the continued efforts to construct the dangerous Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Sanders announced he plans to introduce legislation to end all federal subsidies for fossil fuel production in this country, saying, “we’ve got to save this planet, reverse global warming, transform our energy system, and move to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.”

By Brad Johnson on Jan 24, 2012 at 5:53 pm

Climate Progress

Senators Question Weak Oil Speculation Rule

By Brad Johnson on Oct 18, 2011 at 11:33 am

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is poised to vote on position limits for oil trading, but some senators are concerned that the rule will be too weak to diminish oil speculation. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) both wrote letters to CFTC Commissioner Gary Gensler, asking him to take stronger steps to curb financial speculators like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Sanders called the expected rule “simply unacceptable“:

Unfortunately, if recent reports in the media are correct, the final rule on position limits, as currently drafted, will do little or nothing to lower prices and it will not eliminate, prevent or diminish excessive speculation as required by the Dodd-Frank Act. At a time when the American people are experiencing extremely high oil and gas prices, this would be simply unacceptable.

Financial institutions have grossly distorted oil and other commodity markets that used to be dominated by actual buyers and sellers of the underlying products. The Dodd-Frank Act mandated that the CFTC establish stronger limits on financial speculation in commodity markets by Jan. 17, 2011. Nine months behind schedule, the CFTC is planning to establish position limits that would allow a single speculator to control 25 percent of the physically deliverable supply of oil, and to control 125 percent of the cash-settled supply.

Sanders also called on the CFTC to ban “speculative commodity index fund trading,” citing the new report by Better Markets that identifies commodity index funds as the “primary drivers of excessive speculation.”

Sen. Maria Cantwell’s (D-WA) letter to the CFTC goes into more detail about the ineffectiveness of the proposed rule. “I urge the Commission to drop the ‘conditional spot month position limit’ policy from the final ‘Position Limits for Derivatives’ rule and treat the physically-settled and economically equivalent cast-settled ‘look alike’ contracts equally,” she wrote.

Health

Bernie Sanders: Raising The Medicare Age ‘Ain’t Gonna Happen’

By Igor Volsky on Oct 5, 2011 at 9:00 am

Sen. Bernie Sander (I-VT) pledged to oppose any effort to raise the Medicare eligibility age last night as he addressed Campaign for America Future’s Take Back The American Dream conference, arguing that too many Americans are already dying from poor access to health insurance:

“Forty-five thousand people are dying in America this year because they don’t have access to healthcare, and we’ll be damned if we’re going to allow more people to die by raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67,” Sanders told a liberal crowd gathered in Washington for the Take Back the American Dream conference. “Ain’t gonna happen.”

The Vermont liberal sounded a similar warning regarding proposals to scale back Social Security benefits.

“In the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression, you know what you don’t do?” Sanders asked. “You don’t cut Social Security – that’s what you don’t do. And anybody who tells you that Social Security is part of the deficit problem is lying to you.”

Gradually raising the Medicare eligibility age had been initially considered by President Obama as part of larger deficit proposal, but was left out of his most recent deficit reduction plan. Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) re-introduced the idea in their recent Medicare reduction proposal and have urged the super committee to adopt it. Hospitals have also been big boosters of the proposal.

But as Sanders put it, raising the age would increase costs for beneficiaries by moving seniors into more expensive private care and could potentially price some out of coverage altogether. The reform would save very little money and would only do so “by shifting costs to most of the 65- and 66-year-olds who would lose Medicare coverage, to employers that provide health coverage for their retirees, to Medicare beneficiaries, to younger people who buy insurance through the new health insurance exchanges, and to states.”

Economy

Bernie Sanders Introduces Bill To Lift The Payroll Tax Cap, Ensuring Full Social Security Funding For Nearly 75 Years

By Zaid Jilani on Aug 25, 2011 at 2:40 pm

Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was a featured speaker at the United Steel Workers 2011 conference in Las Vegas.

Sanders focused much of his speech on the Social Security system, blasting suggestions by Democrats and Republicans alike that, for example, we should adjust the cost of living adjustment to cut Social Security payments to working class Americans or raise the retirement age. “When [Social Security] was developed, 50 percent of seniors lived in poverty. Today, poverty among seniors is too high, but that number is ten percent. Social Security has done exactly what it was designed to do!” he thundered, defending the program. Watch it:

Today, Sanders announced that he will introduce legislation that would strengthen Social Security without cutting benefits to any of its beneficiaries. Sanders’ legislation would eliminate the income cap that currently exists in the payroll tax that does not tax income above $106,800:

To keep Social Security strong for another 75 years, Sanders’ legislation would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. [...] Under Sanders’ legislation, Social Security benefits would be untouched. The system would be fully funded by making the wealthiest Americans pay the same payroll tax already assessed on those with incomes up to $106,800 a year.

Sanders points out that President Obama himself endorsed this idea on the campaign trail in 2008. “What we need to do is to raise the cap on the payroll tax so that wealthy individuals are paying a little bit more into the system. Right now, somebody like Warren Buffet pays a fraction of 1 percent of his income in payroll tax, whereas the majority…pays payroll tax on 100 percent of their income. I’ve said that was not fair,” said Obama during the campaign.

The Social Security system is currently fully funded until 2037. Lifting the payroll tax cap would virtually eliminate funding shortfalls the program would experience over the next 75 years.

Update

Recall that polling shows that even a majority of self-identified tea partiers would rather raise the payroll tax cap than raise the retirement age.

NEWS FLASH

Sen. Sanders: From What I’ve Heard, Debt Ceiling Deal Will Be A Disaster | In an interview today, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told Think Progress that “the agreements I have seen and I have read about in the newspaper [to raise the debt ceiling] would be a disaster for working families and lower income people.” Sanders also indicated he would be open to a short term extension to the debt ceiling to allow Democrats more time to make their case to the American people. Watch it:

–Sean Savett

By Guest Blogger on Jul 22, 2011 at 4:05 pm

Economy

Bernie Sanders: Senators Have Told Me If Obama Sends A ‘Piece Of Crap’ Debt Deal To Us, We’ll Defeat It

By Zaid Jilani on Jul 8, 2011 at 12:50 pm

The Washington Post set off a political firestorm earlier this week when it reported that President Obama will reportedly be seeking changes to Social Security as part of a wider debt ceiling deal with Congress.

This morning, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) hosted a press call with reporters about their opposition to including Social Security and Medicare in debt ceiling negotiations. ThinkProgress asked Sanders if he thinks including regressive cuts to these programs in a debt ceiling deal would hurt Obama politically and what tactics he would be willing to use to stop such a deal. He said that including such cuts would “obviously” hurt President Obama in the next election and that he would do “everything” that he can to defeat such a package.

At another point in the call, a Washington Post reporter asked Sanders if he’s convinced that a debt deal that includes Social Security would be unable to pass the Senate. Sanders responded by saying that senators have told him that they are not willing to vote for a “piece of crap” deal and that the White House is in for a “serious surprise” if it expects the Senate to approve any package it hands down:

REPORTER: In your view, if this debt limit deal includes any changes in Social Security, are you convinced that that will not be able to pass the Senate?

SANDERS: Again, it’s hard for us to talk about 99 other people. But I think there really is a disconnect, and I think Sheldon made this point when he was speaking, between what the White House is doing and rest of the Senate. What I can say is that I have heard, including from people that you might not expect to hear it from, that if they bring from the Senate a piece of crap which really comes down heavy on working families, and the elderly, and the sick, and the children, and they expect me to matter of factly vote for it, they have another thing coming. So I think the White House is for a serious surpise if they think everybody in the Democratic caucus is going to willy nilly follow the President and vote for anything he brings forth.

Listen to it:

A recent Pew poll found that 60 percent of Americans believe it is more important to keep Social Security and Medicare benefits intact than to reduce the deficit.

Related Posts

NEWS FLASH

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Rx Reform | Dean Baker reports that Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) bill would create a prize fund to buy drug patents owned by drug companies “so that drugs could then be sold at a free market price. Sanders’s bill would appropriate 0.55 percent of GDP (about $80 billion a year, with the economy’s current size) for buying up patents, which would then be placed in the public domain so that any manufacturer could use them at no cost”:

The country is projected to spend almost $300bn a year on prescription drugs this year. Prices would fall to roughly one-tenth this amount in the absence of patent monopolies, leading to savings of more than $250bn. The savings on lower drug prices should easily exceed the size of the tax, leaving a substantial net reduction in costs to the government and private insurers.

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