Leaked: What's in Obama's trade deal

[n2doc]

Is the White House going to bat for Big Pharma worldwide?

By MICHAEL GRUNWALD

A recent draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal would give U.S. pharmaceutical firms unprecedented protections against competition from cheaper generic drugs, possibly transcending the patent protections in U.S. law.

POLITICO has obtained a draft copy of TPP’s intellectual property chapter as it stood on May 11, at the start of the latest negotiating round in Guam. While U.S. trade officials would not confirm the authenticity of the document, they downplayed its importance, emphasizing that the terms of the deal are likely to change significantly as the talks enter their final stages. Those terms are still secret, but the public will get to see them once the twelve TPP nations reach a final agreement and President Obama seeks congressional approval.

Still, the draft chapter will provide ammunition for critics who have warned that TPP’s protections for pharmaceutical companies could dump trillions of dollars of additional health care costs on patients, businesses and governments around the Pacific Rim. The highly technical 90-page document, cluttered with objections from other TPP nations, shows that U.S. negotiators have fought aggressively and, at least until Guam, successfully on behalf of Big Pharma.

The draft text includes provisions that could make it extremely tough for generics to challenge brand-name pharmaceuticals abroad. Those provisions could also help block copycats from selling cheaper versions of the expensive cutting-edge drugs known as “biologics” inside the U.S., restricting treatment for American patients while jacking up Medicare and Medicaid costs for American taxpayers.

“There’s very little distance between what Pharma wants and what the U.S. is demanding,” said Rohat Malpini, director of policy for Doctors Without Borders.

more

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/06/tpp-deal-leaked-pharma-000126?hp=t3_r

[djean111]

1. Oh, I am sure we are just being pranked. Or else something that will raise the cost of medicine

worldwide was put into a huge "trade" agreement that now cannot be changed.
One of those.
Well done, corporations! You certainly got your money's worth!
Gold standard, indeed.

[joshcryer]

2. I've said it from the beginning, IP and environment...

...are the true harbinger of TPP faults. It ceases affecting jobs (or livelihood) and really affects lives (life, it's live-or-die).

[Octafish]

3. Something so good has to be kept secret. It's the New Democratic way of helping Big Pharma.

If the corporate lawyers writing the treaty didn't keep it secret, all the citizens supporting it would get in the way of its implementation and spoil their surprise.

[raindaddy]

4. Obama's been in the back pocket of Pharma from the very beginning....

From secret meetings guaranteeing their obscene markups during the healthcare negotiations to his secret "trade deal".

[fasttense]

5. Ahh, those United States Trade Representatives Pimping for the Corporations Yet Again

They got some real demanding corporate whores.

You would think everyone in the US was, or worked for, a corporation or bank the way our trade representatives represent only them. It's like no one else exists for our US Trade Reps.

[raouldukelives]

9. You got it.

They do not care. About you, about me, about making things better, just making money.

"Damn the torpedoes"

Each person that labors to increase the volume of their voices is directly laboring to decrease the volume of mine and of those of us who care about remaining a viable ecosystem for our continuing families and the planets wildlife, the suffering of the least, 3rd world slavery, perpetual war, racism, education, free press and basic representative democracy.

I always say the one good thing about Citizens United is that now corporations are people. Just like Bernie, Hillary, Barack, Jeb & Donald. Just like you, just like me.

They are the most backstabbing, dishonest, greedy, polluting, racist, selfish, warmongering, hate filled people one could ever have the pleasure of knowing or supporting.

My mom always told me you could judge people by the company they keep. Thanks to CU, that is more true than ever.

[Elwood P Dowd]

33. USTR wrote the damn thing, and they are noting but a revolving door of Wall Street executives.

Wall Street gives them millions of dollars to serve a few years in Washington, and then they return to a nice six figure promotion.

[GoneFishin]

6. "...between what Pharma wants and what the U.S. is demanding...". They are the same fucking people!

Who the hell do they think they are kidding with this rhetorical spin?

[Divernan]

7. Who you gonna trust? Big Pharma or Doctors Without Borders?

For god's sake! Think - and I mean really contemplate- the millions of people who will suffer excruciatingly until they get the blessed relief of death - because of over-priced drugs.

Remember in excruciatingly painful detail the last time you or one of your kids or one of your elderly parents or a dear friend was in extreme physical distress from a physical ailment or injury. No pain meds, antibiotics, etc., for you or yours, you poor schmucks - so sorry, Charlie - just suck it up, shut up & die.

How do these politicians and corporate profiteers look the world, let alone themselves, in the eye. I don't believe in an afterlife, but I wish there was a 9th Circle of Hell for these monsters.

Fucking Malthusians profiting while reducing the surplus population.

(And to the stalking alerters, look up Malthus so you don't conclude this is a sideways reference to anyone else. It isn't. I refer to an 18th century social philosopher.)
Biographical Note for MALTHUSIAN
Mal·thus \ˈmȯl-thəs\
Thomas Robert (1766–1834), British economist and demographer. Malthus presented his theory of population in An Essay on the Principle of Population, which was first published in 1798 but later expanded and documented. An economic pessimist, he viewed poverty as unfortunate as well as inevitable. His thinking later had a profound influence upon Charles Darwin.

[kenfrequed]

10. Exactly!

This trade deal is bad for people and was designed for large corporations. We need to take government back from big monied interests.

[blackspade]

14. The fact that you had to define your term to avoid an alert is sad.

[Divernan]

18. Yup. Charles Dickens wept!

It's sad not just because we have alert stalkers running rampant around DU, but because Americans' educational level is generally so low that they don't have enough education in history or philosophy to even "get" my reference.

But here's an interesting discussion of Thomas Malthus and the long-lasting impact of his writings:
http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/24/malthus-dickens-scrooge-oped-cx_jb_1224bowyer.html

Malthus and Scrooge
“Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.” “Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.” “If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

That phrase–surplus population–is what first tipped me off to Dickens’ philosophical agenda. He’s taking aim at the father of the zero-growth philosophy, Thomas Malthus. Malthus’ ideas were still current in British intellectual life at the time A Christmas Carol was written. Malthus, himself, had joined the surplus generation only nine years before. But his ideas have proved more durable.

Malthus taught the world to fear new people. An amateur economist, he created a theoretical model which allegedly proved that mass starvation was an inevitable result of population growth. Populations grow, he said, geometrically, but wealth only grows arithmetically. In other words, new people create more new people, but new food doesn’t create new food. Malthus’ influence, unfortunately, grew geometrically and not arithmetically. His ideas provided fodder for Darwin, and Darwin’s lesser mutations used the model to argue for the value of mass human extinction.

Hitler’s hard eugenics and Sanger’s (founder of Planned Parenthood) softer one, both owed a great debt of gratitude to Thomas Malthus. So do the zero-growth, sustainable-growth, right-to-die, duty-to-die, life boat bio-ethicists who dominate so much of our intellectual discussion. Malthus turned out to be, ironically, right in some sense. His prediction of mass death has taken place; not because he was right, but because he was believed.

Scrooge’s philosophy is not one based on the evidence; he ignores the evidence. He keeps setting aside the evidence of his senses with reference to the secular philosophy of his time. When he sees a spirit, he says that it’s just a piece of undigested beef causing him to hallucinate. He denies the realm of the spirit until it becomes simply undeniable.

Dickens’ message is clear enough: The Malthusians of his day did not need evidence (which they ignored every day in the marketplace) or reason. They needed conversion. They needed healing. They needed to be reminded on the day where the world celebrates the birth of a child whom Rome and Herod try to assign to the role of ‘surplus population,’ that the frightened men who rule the world in the name of scarcity should not be followed, but saved.

We certainly see parallels in our modern world of people who ignore the evidence (as in global warming/corporate profiteering), following the secular philosophy that one can never have enough millions - when I see/hear of a person who has made millions but dedicated their lives to making even more - I see, as Dickens describes it, "frightened men" (or women).

[Roy Rolling]

8. Who is at the table representing American consumers?

This is like the foxes making rules for the hen house.

[Divernan]

12. I believe there's a symbolic empty chair off to the side.

But not to worry, HRC says its a gold standard deal.

[Thespian2]

11. More evidence

that corporations will control the government of the US and the separate states once TPP passes...

[blackspade]

13. Shocking! Not.

The TPP is a stinking pile of shit for citizens of all the nations involved.

So fast track passed...Where is the worker protection bill that they said was going to come right on it's heals?
Not so urgent now I guess since the GOP and their corporate allies got what they wanted.

Sickening

[Oilwellian]

15. This is borderline, mass genocide

A lack of generic drugs in third world countries will be deadly for many.

[90-percent]

16. If America was a DEMOCRACY instead of an OLIGARCHY

Instead of 600 corporate lobbyists toiling in secret for five fucking years to craft the TPP.

How about the make up of these 600 titans of industry consist of 200 registered Republicans, 200 registered Democrats and 200 or what ever the fuck the multi-national corporations want to participate?

Right now this SECRET LAW being greased down the chute of our former Democracy seems to be solely of by and for multi-national corporations, with no consideration of average people WHAT SO EVER!


Isn't secret government antithetical to the principals our country was founded on?

-90% Jimmy

[jwirr]

17. We knew this already but thanks to Guam we now have the proof - but of course it does us no

good because they got the TPA passed and we cannot change anything. Thank you President Obama.

But this is going to backfire on him because when those prices start going up that legacy of his is in real danger. Not only has he given the corporations more power but he has caused the cost of medical care to skyrocket - think ACA. And he will be remembered by the world as the president who made healthcare for those in poor countries to deteriorate. This is not going to help his legacy.

[d_legendary1]

19. The only time both parties work together

is to screw us over.

[City Lights]

23. Truer words were never spoken.

[GoneFishin]

24. Makes you wonder if EVERYTHING up until now has been kabuki to keep us distracted until

they can all sucker punch us with TPP.

[d_legendary1]

25. Well they HAVE taken away our

1. right to vote (voter surpression laws)

2. means to track votes (electronic voting machines)

3. representation (re-districting)

4. means to get the real news (MSM)

5. elected officials (money is speech)

6. commons (selling of highways, schools, etc.)

7. education (charter schools)

And the list keeps going on and on.

[brentspeak]

20. Obama's people will simply include some non-binding

language which offers the possibility of some sort of pharma discount for a few poor people out there somewhere.

It will be bull$hit, of course, but it will let Obama's spokes-shills tout the whole sordid Big Pharma giveaway as something "progressive".

[HFRN]

29. kinda like 'worker retraining'

crumbs given to workers displaced by a labor market made barren by trade deal locusts

[MisterP]

21. the answer to "why is Obama X?" is always "because we'll crawl back begging forgiveness." ALWAYS

[msanthrope]

22. I have no problem with strong patent protection that blocks copycats.

it's unfortunate that your article conflates the issue of copycats with generics.....they aren't the same thing.

[Romulox]

26. Of course you don't! nt

[msanthrope]

32. No one who cares about consumer safety does. Copycats are killers.

They aren't generics.....and anyone familiar with this issue in terms of IP understands that the conflation of copycats and generics only hurts the American consumer.

tell us..... if you take a copycat and are harmed, what is your recourse?

[HFRN]

27. 'free trade' keeps consumer prices high and protected, while sending wages to the bottom

that's what they've always done

big pharma keeps foreign drugs out, while bringing in foreign H-1b workers - hard to lose, when you rig the markets literally coming and going

disgusting that there are people on this forum, attacking those who are concerned about the TPP

[Romulox]

28. What galls is that our "free trade" shills won't/can't defend this. nt

[n2doc]

30. Why should they, they won

No need to keep explaining things to us peons. We "just don't get it"

[neverforget]

31. And if it sucks, the Republicans won't pass it