Sunday, December 8, 2013

Money, Sugar and Lobbying in DC


This is a great WashPost article that shows if you can get both parties behind, we can see action in DC.  Apparently the sugar industry has had subsidies for eighty years (and of course, if you teach US, you know we were protecting it back before the American Revolution) and even has

 won over Tea Party members who are against subsidies.  The article has links to graphics such as you can see below and a nice, short explanation above.

While we are at it, here is another article that looks two drugs made by the same company to help senior patients with eye problems.  One is $50 an injection and the other is $2000.  The FDA wants Genentech to apply to it for using the cheaper one for the injection but the company says that the drug was developed for other purposes.  Oh did I mention that doctors, under Medicare, are reimbursed for the average price of a drug + 6% of the cost so they gain more from using more expensive drugs on patients.  

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