The first paragraph of a Washington Post piece on a drug industry commitment to lower drug prices described his health care plan as "expensive and ambitious." One can certainly describe our current health care system as "expensive" although the Post almost never does. It is less clear that President Obama's plan, which is intended to rein in costs, should be described this way.
It would also have been helpful if the article had put the projected $80 billion in savings in context. This is equal to a bit more than 2 percent of the $3.8 trillion that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services project the country will spend on drugs over the next decade. The Post quotes its unnamed source as saying: "this is real money on the table."
In the next paragraph the Post tells readers that "The concessions by drug manufacturers would essentially lower the cost of reform by a small fraction of the $1 trillion needed." That fraction would be 8 percent, assuming the commitment is met.
A second Trump administration will cement a right-wing majority on the Supreme Court for a generation, and put our collective future in the hands of someone who will be virtually unchecked by our institutions. The country has shifted rightward, and the reverberations will ensue for potentially the next few decades. In this climate, a robust independent media ecosystem will be more important than ever. We're committed to bringing you the latest news on how Trump's agenda will actually affect the American people, shining a light on the stories corporate media overlooks and keeping the public informed about how power really works in this country.
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