Bad Medicine (For Us) From The Trump Regime-- Backed By Half A Dozen Conservative Democrats

This week 6 corporate Democrats voted to confirm Alex Azar to be Secretary of Health and Human Services:

• Tom Carper (D-DE)
• Chris Coons (D-DE)
• Joe Donnelly (D-IN)
• Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND)
• Doug Jones (D-AL)
• Joe Manchin (D-WV)

Maine independent Angus King also voted to confirm and Rand Paul was the only Republican to break with his party, cross the aisle in the other direction and vote NO. Paul said he voted against him because Azar opposes drug importation but Heitkamp said she was voting for him because he is "incredibly competent... I don’t share a lot of his philosophy," she said, "but he understands, as someone who has been in the administration, the importance of the rule of law and compliance. I believe I can work with him in the future, especially on Indian health." If she means by that, raising the cost of pharmaceuticals, she's right. He proved he can do that when he was the head of Eli Lilly’s U.S. operation ( 2012 to 2017).

Skyrocketing drug prices are the bain of many people's lives. I think I mentioned when I got back from Thailand a couple of weeks ago. I bought a couple of months worth of one drug I take that costs $3,000 a month here and less than a fifth of that there. I also bough several inhalers for $6 each in Thailand and $70-80 in the U.S. with insurance.

When Azar was running Eli Lilly he tripled the price of insulin for example. Is that what Heitkamp thinks is going to help her American Indian constituents back in North Dakota? Heitkamp and the Republicans are basically using the laughable argument that who's better to fight crime than criminals. That doesn't work with predators like Azar (or Trump or any of his cabinet appointments).

The only part of Medicare that sucks is Bush's Medicare Part D-- the part that insures (badly) drugs. Azar was a key Bush staffer on that. Bush's Health Secretary Mike Leavitt appointed Azar to oversee the department’s regulatory process. Remember when Trump, on the campaign trail, said that firms like Eli Lilly were "getting away with murder?" Now he's put one of the most brutal murderers in charge.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee: "Azar’s nomination is a perfect encapsulation of the president’s broken promises on prescription drugs and health care overall." Almost all the Democratic senators looked at Azars pledge to address rising drug prices in the light of what he did at Eli Lilly significantly raise prices. He opposes the Affordable Care Act and is an anti-Choice fanatic, which probably helps explain why other conservative Democratic women who often cross the aisle to vote for Trump's nominees left Heitkamp other own this time.

Kaylie Hanson Long, a spokeswoman for NARAL: "It is sad, but not surprising, that Donald Trump is so desperate to install another anti-choice ideologue at HHS, an agency that's critical for women's healthcare. HHS has a duty to protect the health, rights, and reproductive freedom of women all across America, and Azar's clear and consistent anti-choice record should disqualify him from such an influential position."

Jenny Marshall in the progressive candidate running for the House seat in northwest North Carolina-- the seat Virginia Foxx occupies. She explained that "It is the job of the Senate to confirm well qualified candidates who will serve the people of this country through their departments. So far President Trump has put forward nominees who despise the departments they would oversee, were completely incompetent and who would stand to make fortunes from the policies they enact. This is not best for the people of this country and it erodes the very fabric of our government. My fellow Democrats and I should be standing strong against these kinds of nominees. Our country deserves better."