If you live in Ohio right now, you may not know much about the upcoming election, but you’ve seen commercials against Issue 2. In fact, you can’t escape commercials for Issue 2.
I rarely watch network TV, but the ads are all over Hulu. Facebook is targeting me as well.
This is because the pharmaceutical industry has spent $58 million to try to defeat Issue 2, which proposes that the state of Ohio buy prescription drugs at the same price as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The reasoning behind Issue 2 is that the VA gets the lowest price.
It seems straightforward, yet I have questions about the issue. Especially because there seems to be so much propaganda. So I researched it and asked a couple folks on both sides of the issue. Here’s what I found.
The first problem I have with this issue is that there are so many different reasons cited to vote against it.
The pharmaceutical industry strategy to defeat Issue 2
If you go to the “No on Issue 2” page, there are at least 12 different reasons given for voting against it.
We’re told:
- It’s deceptive
- It’s voting for one thing and getting another
- It will increase drug prices
- It will fleece taxpayers
- It would cause red tape
- It would create bureaucracy
- It would increase the cost of drugs for the two-thirds of Ohioans who have private insurance
- The guy who is funding the bill is:
- From California
- He’s a big pharma CEO
- Scary
- Doctors oppose Issue 2
- We don’t know what the VA pays for drugs
- It includes a clause to help pay for lawsuits if it passes
- Grover Norquist is against the bill
The strategy that they’re using is to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt by putting up so many reasons to vote against it that the average person must think some of them are true.
No matter how you want to be against it, No on Issue 2 has an answer for you: It’s scary, it could do anything, we don’t know, it will cause red tape and bureaucracy, and it will probably kill small animals, women, and children.
In the 2016 election, this same strategy was used against Hillary Clinton. I saw people post lists of lies about her. When told they were lies, they responded: “But what if just one of them is true?”
From a psychological standpoint, it doesn’t seem possible that so much information could all be lies. So they try to list as many reasons possible for voting against the issue.
Let’s take them at their word for a second. Let’s assume that there is some kind of suspicious ulterior motive behind Issue 2 and let’s try to find out what it is.
What is the real motive behind Issue 2?
First, let’s look at the pro Issue 2 claim. Their claim is that this is about high drug prices. If Ohio agencies could pay the same amount as the VA, they estimate that the state could save up to $400 million. This estimate uses a 24 percent savings metric on the $2 billion in prescription drugs the State of Ohio purchases every year.
But I have this nagging feeling because of all the propaganda that claims this is “deceptive.” Something doesn’t sound right to me. So let’s try to map out what that something could actually be. If the pro Issue 2 folks have an ulterior motive, what is it?
Would Weinstein personally benefit in any way?
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is the largest provider of HIV/AIDS medical care in the U.S. and has service centers in Columbus and Cleveland.
I can’t think of any way that AHF or Weinstein personally would benefit from this issue.
So what’s the “deception” that the drug companies claim then?
The closest thing I can come up with that’s true is that there are probably better solutions to this problem.
The problem with all of the better solutions is that the drug companies own Washington D.C. and none of these will ever see the light of day.
What’s the worst case scenario I can think of?
The worst case scenario is that the drug companies lose the hundreds of millions that AHF claims they lose and then, as they’ve stated, raise prices on other people to make up their profits.
If you think about the current situation, however, this is what they’re already doing. The way competition is being used right now is to raise prices instead of lowering them. They give the best price to the group with the most leverage (the VA) and raise prices on everyone else.
If suddenly Ohio got a better deal, the pharmaceutical companies might not be able to raise prices on others because others would want this deal, too. This is how markets work when they’re set up well. They work to lower costs for people.
Basically, the worst case scenario is no different than the status quo.
What I know for sure
There are four things about this issue I know for sure:
- The pharmaceutical industry is spending $58 million or more to defeat the bill. In California, they spent $110 million.
- The pharmaceutical industry claims the bill is “deceptive” yet there doesn’t appear to be any motive for deception.
- There are probably better ways to solve this. None of them are politically feasible right now because of the lobbying strength of the pharmaceutical companies.
- The status quo is already the worst-case scenario: The pharmaceutical industry makes its money through divide and conquer strategies and asymmetries of information that allow large organizations like the VA to get discounts while they raise prices for everyone else.
In an ideal situation, our country would have a single payer health plan that could negotiate the best prices for drugs as a single unit. We don’t.
The fact that all of Ohio’s different agencies have to negotiate separate costs and no one really knows what anyone else pays is how the pharmaceutical companies make their money.
In a best-case scenario, Ohio finds out what the VA pays and this improves our negotiation power. Then other states and groups want to do the same thing.
This is likely what the drug companies fear—and they fear it to the tune of $58 million. If they’re spending $58 million to defeat the bill, there’s probably a lot more at stake.
The incredible thing is how just $58 million can create this much uncertainty around the issue. I’ve talked to several opponents and advocates in an attempt to get to the bottom of this. The one thing all of the opponents say is, “There are better ways to solve this.”
Are any of these ways realistic in the near term because of the pharmaceutical industry? No.
For these reasons, I’m voting for Issue 2.
David Akadjian is the author of The Little Book of Revolution: A Distributive Strategy for Democracy (ebook now available).