Thread by @doctorow

The "American Prosperity Alliance" does not exist, except as an anonymously controlled bank account that has paid for the production and dissemination of a slick ad that spreads the falsehood that the Democrats have cut $300b from Medicare:

1/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2022/08/11/rop…

It's a lie. 2/

What "Americans for Prosperity" is talking about is a provision in allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, rather than paying whatever Big Pharma demands - the reason Americans pay *much* more for their drugs than, say, Canadians:

personalimportation.org/dramatic-drug-… 3/

To be clear: the new bill will curb the eye-watering public price-gouging that Big Pharma enjoys, halting the transfer of $300b in public money to pharma shareholders, by allowing Medicare to bargain to get the prices paid in countries like Australia, Canada, and the UK. 4/

There is no universe in which this a $300b *cut* to Medicare. It's like the Dems have pledged to halt $300b in *fraud* and the American Prosperity Alliance screamed: "They're cutting your benefits!" In fact, it's not *like* that - it *is* that. 5/

Who the fuck are the American Prosperity Alliance? No one knows. They're a dark money group. Their website consists of a link to their deceptive ad, a form to sign up for their mailing list...and nothing else.

prosperityalliance.org 6/

As @loujacobson writes for @PolitiFact/@KHNews, this is just the latest version of a torrent of dark money disinformation that makes this claim.

khn.org/news/article/s… 7/

For example, the West Virginia TV ad from @cife_usa in which an elderly woman was literally *condemned to die* by her doctor, who explained that it was all because the Democrats were going to negotiate drug prices:

huffpost.com/entry/drug-com… 8/

(CIFE claims to be for "free markets," which, apparently, is a system whereby a cartel of multinationals who rely on government-issued monopolies - AKA 'patents' - get to demand literally any sum from the federal government and are assured of receiving it.) 9/

As @Robillard and @CitizenCohn wrote for @HuffPost, similar claims came from "America Next," @AmerComm and "The 60-Plus Association" (which is like a far-right prepper version of the AARP). 10/

All of them have historically taken money from @Phrma, the lobby group for Big Pharma.

The disinformation would be laughable if it wasn't so depraved. 11/

Telling old people that giving Medicare an extra $300b to spend on patients is a *$300b cut* to care is straight-up lying - and thanks to #SCOTUS's *Citizens United* decision, the dark money cowards funding the American Prosperity Alliance get to lurk in the shadows. 12/

If they're so committed to "American Prosperity," why do they need to disguise their identities? Is it that they are planning a big reveal later that we'll all be delighted by and they just don't want to spoil the surprise? 13/

The irony here is that the Medicare spending curbs in the Inflation Reduction Act are *incredibly* weaksauce, barely denting pharma's profiteering. As @ThomasNeuburger writes, this only kicks in as of 2026, and it only affects *ten* drugs.

neuburger.substack.com/p/the-ira-drug… 14/

Neuburger is citing a summary from @thehill, which adds that this provision only applies to drugs that are have been around for at least nine years (13 years for biologics):

thehill.com/homenews/35926… 15/

The number of affected drugs climbs to 20 after another five years. That means that, starting in a decade, Medicare will be able to negotiate prices on 20 drugs - out of *20,000*. 16/

This plan *won't* bring down the prices of the most notoriously jacked-up medicine, including #insulin, #Eliquis, and #Humira.

Remember Humira? 17/

It's a drug that was repeatedly re-patented via useless "formulation changes" designed by @McKinsey, who designed a program that gave away Iphones to @abbvie scientists who came up with useless molecular changes as part of a perpetual patent scheme:

pluralistic.net/2021/11/25/str… 18/

In other words, Big Pharma has given up *almost nothing* in this bill, and they are *still* running around, lying their heads off like they had just been nationalized by Party Secretary Biden and had all their top scientists sent north to work on re-education farms. 19/

Image:
Grumpy Puddin (modified)
flickr.com/photos/grumpy-…

CC BY 2.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.… 20/