If you happen to catch Bill Moyers’ show this week with his guest Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont or read “Foul Play in the Senate” published at common dreams by Moyers and co-writer Michael Winship, you will discover one more example of how Congressional crony capitalism has reached obscene levels.
Apparently if NYT team Eric Lipton and Kevin Sack hadn’t published their exemplary investigative report most of Congress, let alone the citizenry, would not have even known about a colossal half a billion dollar sweetheart arrangement slipped into a covert clause of the recent “fiscal cliff bill.”
The THREE SENATE PERPETRATORS, long-time enmeshed with a pharmaceutical giant called Amgen, are Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Democratic Senator Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and "that powerful committee’s ranking Republican", Orrin Hatch.
The loophole “tucked” into the bill was that Amgen, not mentioned by name, would have two more years of relief from Medicare cost controls for certain drugs used by patients who are on kidney dialysis, including a pill called Sensipar. This gift (to the corporation but not the taxpayers who must foot it) amounts to a whopping half a billion dollars.
