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- VIGILANTE, SOZADEE, CA -
As you know, my last two posts dealt with those who are profiting immensely from our current exclusionary private health "care" system, highlighting those from the health insurance racket. But they are only part of the reason your health care costs so much. Another guilty industry is the pharmaceutical industry, which I highlight here.
Below is my Top 10 list of pharma CEOs whose obscenely high salaries help contribute to the high cost of medical treatment in this country. Just like their greedy profiteering counterparts in the health insurance industry, they are ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE. Unlike David Letterman's Top 10 lists, though, this one is not cute or humorous. In fact, it should make your blood boil. Remember, folks, that roughly 30% of the cost of expensive American drug company research and development is underwritten by YOU, the American taxpayer, in the form of subsidies. So how do these companies and their CEOs show YOU their gratitude for such support? By producing some of the medications in cheap labor countries overseas instead of employing American workers to make them here, by selling the very same drugs here, where these companies are headquartered, at TWICE the price they sell them to Canada, Australia, and other places in the world with so-called "socialized medicine" systems, and by rewarding themselves and their board members with piggishly high salaries at YOUR expense, that's how!
So here they are, the rip-offs who keep raising their prices at will and lining their pockets with YOUR money. I have included a photo of each so you'll know exactly who to verbally thrash should you ever encounter them in an empty elevator or a dimly-lit parking lot or ramp. I have their exorbitant 2008 salaries posted here (taken from a May 11, 2009 Fierce Pharmo report by Maureen Martino and Calisha Myers), as well as a few of the drugs/products their companies produce which do help you live and feel better, but which you also pay dearly for so that they can live luxuriously while you feel the financial pinch. These are the people who profit off of your sickness and misery. THEY ARE YOUR ENEMIES!
10. JOHN LECHLEITER
CEO, Eli Lilly
2008 salary: $ 13,000,000
(Cialis, Evista, plus a number of insulins for diabetics)
9. FRANK BALDINO
CEO, Cephalion
2008 salary: $ 14,5000,000
(Nuvigil, Fentora, Amrix, Gabitril)
8. JEFFREY KINDLER
CEO, Pfizer
2008 salary: $ 14,800,000
(Caduet, Xalatan, Benadryl, Lipitor, Viagra, Celebrex, Depo-Provera, Zoloft)
7. DAVID VASELLA
CEO, Novartis
2008 salary: $ 15,100,000
(Diovan, Lamisil, Lotrel, Exelon, Glivec, Exjade)
6. ROBERT PARKINSON
CEO, Baxter International
2008 salary: $ 16,000,000
(produces inhalation anesthesias, dialysis and cardiovascular products, and medicine delivery systems and units)
5. RICHARD CLARK
CEO, Merck
2008 salary: $ 19,900,000
(Zocor, Januvia, Zostavax, Vytorin)
4. JIM CORNELIUS
CEO, Bristol-Myers Squibb
2008 salary: $ 25,000,000
(Plavix, Abilify, Baraclude, Orencia)
3. BERNARD POUSSOT
CEO, Wyeth
2008 salary: $ 25,000,000
(Alavert, Premarin, Robitussin, Pinracil, Ambesol, Lumevax)
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2. MILES WHITE
CEO, Abbott
2008 salary: $ 28,300,000
(Vicodin, Prevacid, Depacon, Humira, Leptos, Erythromycin)
And the number 1 reason your prescriptions cost so much:
BILL WELDON
CEO, Johnson & Johnson
2008 salary: $ 29,500,000
(Axert, Reopro, Doribax, One Touch diabetic blood glucose meters, Prezista, Doxil)
Remember these names, faces, and companies next time you must pay for an expensive prescription drug. These are the people who directly or indirectly cause many elderly on fixed incomes and millions of others low on money to have to sometimes choose between their product or food to eat. These are the people who want no price-lowering pressure to come from a government-run, public option health care plan. They would rather punp money into expensive ads designed to get you to suggest their particular product to your doctor than to have everyone able to afford medication. They would rather preserve their gigantic salaries than see everybody able to afford medical care. THEY ARE YOUR ENEMIES. For their primary interest is maintaining and increasing their profits, and your cure or relief from pain or misery is of a distant secondary importance.
UP NEXT: LEADERSHIP WE COULD USE TODAY!
10 comments:
I remember having a polite argument with a conservative about the health care system back in 1992, the election year.
When I complained of the absurd cost of prescription meds, she replied something like, "Don't you realize there are people who have to be paid?"
Now I know whom she was talking about!
Sadly, I don't think she did know, and that person probably still doesn't know now. That's what comes of too many hours listening to Lardbaugh. That shit warps minds.
Limbaugh atrophies brains, too. I wonder what that bird brain from 1992 thinks now. I wonder if she took the same attitude when it came to American WORKERS being paid, when Bush allowed their good paying jobs to go to China, India, and Mexico? You know---those were "people who have to be paid" too! Probably not, though---people like her always seem to follow the authoritarian voice, even as it leads them over a cliff.
I found your post looking for A photo of Stephen Helmsley.
Good work!
I'm posting a link to it in Live Journal.
Check out Democracy Now for today.
Thanks, Anonymous. It's time to roll all this overbearing corporate greed back a few notches.
Those numbers are staggering. Medicine should have never been allowed to be have been governed by P&L sheets. Woe unto us.
It is a vivid example of capitalistic, corporate excess. Clearly, it is sometimes true that the profit-motive is NOT the best attribute to be associated with a product or service! Sometimes, it actually proves to be a destructive detriment!
This is a great piece of journalism. I'd like to tweet it. You may be on twitter, if so, let me know your twitter handle--Tweet it yourself and I'll retweet it. It's a big audience.
Thanks for the visit to my place. I'll put you on my blog list, so I can keep up with you.
Thank you, Peggy! I don't Tweet, but feel free to copy or circulate this stuff as you see fit. There is so much BS going around right now from the right and from the insurance/pharma lobby, we've got to do all we can to present the truth. By the way, if you liked what you saw in this post, you'll also like my previous two, which pick on the overpaid CEOs in health insurance.
I liked what I saw in your blog, too, so I'll start following it, too. Thanks again! :)
These are the son-of-a-bitch bastards that are profiting off those of us who are barely able to survive? I have an idea: cut their salaries by 75% and use the money to fund a health care program.
That's just too easy, isn't it? Who the hell deserves≃$13.5 million a year, not to mention an expense account, paid car, health benefits (ironic), and, in some cases, homes that their company funds.
Bastards.
Right on! STELLA FOR PRESIDENT! (Or, maybe, Attorney General)?
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