It's been a while since I've seen Obama give a mention to his universal health care plan. Having read through the plan in its entirety on his website, I have to say that I wish it took into account the reality of why medical costs are so outrageously high. I am aware that an in-depth discussion of the details of the plan doesn't make for interesting sound-bytes and doesn't hold the interest of the American public the way patriotism, terrorism, and economic recovery plans do, but for millions of Americans forced to pay unnecessarily high drug costs, this hits U.S. consumers where it hurts the worst, in the pocketbook.

I am a Chronic Pain patient. A CP for short. I have been a CP for over 12 years. MY not so bad CPain began after my first car accident in 1996 when a caddy struck my honda t-boned me on the drivers side..i was the driver.

At first it wasnt too bad. That is until I returned to my same doctor 2 weeks later telling him that the pain was still there. That wasnt too too bad. The second 2 weeks and I am back and that was bad. It was the first time I was referred to as a possible addict. The third time....well, I tried another doctor. New doctors went on an on until I finally stopped treating them like gods and asked do something for me. If you cant fix me or prescribe for me do something, anything.

The War On Drugs has become a war on doctors and patients, especially patients. It is an easy group to attack because they cannot defend themselves.

See the Introduction to this series

Patents are the fundamental intellectual property protection (IPP) for physical product or process inventions.  Patents confer monopoly exploitation of these products or processes on the inventors for 20 years from the time of their submission to The Patent and Trademark Office for approval.  This arrangement allows the inventor to reap profits not reduced by competition for a legally limited time in order to encourage innovation.  It also provides some certainty about the invention’s financial return, allowing investments in the commercialization (PDF) of the innovation.

Crossposted from Daily Kos

Crossposted from Daily Kos

Previous diaries in this series described the most important statutes enacted during the past quarter century that created an intellectual property protection (IPP) regime both robust and unique to the pharmaceutical industry.  This diary will rely on the previous ones as background to allow me to discuss the little-known ways in which Congress has ignored consumer interests when legislating that regime and a few of the almost unknown ways the innovator pharma companies exploit the regime to maintain their sales monopolies beyond the time their patents would have expired.

Crossposted from Daily Kos

See Introduction and Part I

My last diary described the unique intellectual property regime for the pharmaceutical industry created by the 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act.  This installment will briefly describe additional intellectual property protections (IPP) Congress has granted that industry.  

The following enumeration of major, long-term IPP legislation directed at the pharmaceutical industry is based on a report compiled by The National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) (PDF).  

Crossposted from Daily Kos

Until recently, the pharmaceutical industry enjoyed the highest profits of any industry in the Fortune 500.  In recent years, the industry’s position has declined—to fifth place in 2006, and second place in 2007.  These extraordinary profits depend entirely on "intellectual property protections" (IPP).   The most fundamental example of such protection is a patent, a form of IPP available to all inventors.  For big pharma, however, Congress has created a unique IPP regime, one that gives the industry advantages enjoyed by no other industry.

You probably know that AARP was hugely influential in championing the horrific and corruption-laden Medicare D prescription drug benefit.

AARP is a brand in America. A brand is how a particular company or organization is perceived by its customers--in the case of AARP, vulnerable elderly Americans.