Seniors, be prepared: If Tom Kean Jr. gets re-elected and gets his way, you’re going to have to pay a lot more for prescription drugs or go without them.

He’s the Big Pharma man in Congress. Kean took more than $1.1 million in campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, a charge his campaign has not denied.

Why does Big Pharma love it? Because he opposed the reform that President Biden signed into law allowing Medicare to negotiate discounts for seniors, the law also capped their out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 a year starting in January. And it capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month.

Note that Kean’s opposition to negotiated cuts means Big Pharma has been able to charge whatever it wants, driving up costs for both the government and seniors. Reform phases in negotiated discounts, starting with the most frequently consumed drugs.

AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins called it “a common-sense approach that people across the political spectrum support. Actually,” she added“the only opposition all these years has been from the big drug companies.”

So is Tom Kean Jr. He slammed this sensitive law, repeating Big Pharma’s claim that allowing Medicare to negotiate is akin to “price controls” and would destroy 58,000 pharmaceutical jobs in New Jersey — a claim he doesn’t never provided any evidence. for, and now I will not discuss.

No wonder. Pharmaceutical titans who criticized the price-fixing law are now assuring their shareholders that it is will not affect significantly their bottom line, as reported by The Hill.

However, the Republican leadership that Kean voted for and those behind Project 2025 are calling for repeal of this law if they regain power, which of course is what Big Pharma wants.

No doubt Kean would be fine with that — subjecting millions of seniors to higher drug costs, higher out-of-pocket expenses, and higher insulin costs.

“They could face out-of-pocket costs of more than $10,000 a year for some drugs that Medicare covers,” Juliette Cubanski, a Medicare policy expert at KFF, warned last week. “Many seniors will not be able to afford their medication at all, as most live on relatively low incomes.”

And it’s not just your grandma who will overpay. If Medicare can no longer negotiate, the government would have to pay an additional $200 billion over 10 years, KFF estimates. That’s a lot of money. For perspective, it would be enough to restore most of the state and local tax deduction known as SALT. Or to expand Medicare coverage to include hearing and dental care. Kean wants to give this money to Big Pharma.

He argues that Medicare needs to overpay so these companies can fund research for new drugs, and that negotiating down high prices would doom us all. “We’re in COVID right now, voting to destroy the pharmaceutical industry would be like World War II, voting to destroy the tank factory,” he said at a 2020 debate.

That’s the Big Pharma line anyway. But the truth is that most basic drug research is funded by the federal government, with grants to universities and other research centers. In 2018, small firms funded largely by government and philanthropies accounted for nearly two-thirds of new patented drugs in the U.S. and nearly three-quarters of drugs in late-stage development, according to the study. Harvard Business Review.

This is where the technology behind Moderna and Pfizer’s life-saving COVID vaccines comes from. And let’s not forget, when House Republicans tried to cut billions from the government budget for this kind of medical research, Kean went along with it. without a glance. What would happen to Kean’s tank factory then?

And let’s face it: Big Pharma doesn’t spend all of its revenue on research. It pays its top executives lavishly, and Johnson & Johnson CEO Joaquin Duato wins over 28 million dollars last year. It spends tens of billions on marketing annually and over $150 million a year on lobbying and political contributions.

Every other advanced country negotiates for lower prices and pays less than us for the same drugs. Then what the drug companies do is put the extra cost on Americans. Why should we carry this burden?

“This is nonsense,” says Rep. Frank Pallone, D-6th, the lead author of the provision to negotiate drug prices. “It’s just that Tom Kean agrees with what the Republican leadership wants.”

No doubt he will do the same when they try to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, says Pallone, a key architect of that law. House Republicans have vowed to get rid of all the subsidies that make its coverage affordable, which are due to be reauthorized next year. Millions could lose their health care altogether.

Even as a state legislator, Kean’s record is telling: He voted against three bills passed by our state to strengthen the protections of the Affordable Care Act that ended up saving consumers big. In 2019, thanks to these bills he opposed, New Jersey’s individual market health premiums actually fell by 9%.

So no matter what he claims, Kean is not reducing the costs of medicine or health care. If you care about making both more accessible, vote for his opponent, Sue Altman.

As a state senator, Kean even voted against putting $11 million into a state-funded program that helps seniors afford prescription drugs. And like Donald Trumpwhen offered the chance to champion the idea of ​​lowering drug prices, Kean refused to do so – instead leading the charge against reform. So don’t be fooled. It will put its pharmaceutical backers first.

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