With lawmakers bearing down on drug and device companies over prices, the industry can’t afford to lose any friends on Capitol Hill, writes STAT, an online news service on the medical industry. And when it comes to medical devices, the industry might not have a better friend than Minnesota Congressman Erik Paulsen. Paulsen, a four-term Republican, has long been device makers’ “go-to guy” in Washington, helping secure a two-year delay of the Affordable Care Act’s tax on medical devices and pursuing reforms that could help the industry. But this year, Donald Trump is threatening to drag Paulsen down. So device makers are stepping in and pouring money into his campaign to save him.
Beyond Obamacare: Stopping Corporations from Making People Sick
Cross-posted from the American Prospect
by Nicholas Freudenberg
The next generation of health reforms should loosen the grip of corporations on the health of Americans, an issue that will resonate with voters angry about special interests in 2016.
Since the sweeping health-care law best known as Obamacare took effect in 2010, Republicans have voted 63 times to repeal or gut it, and Democrats have argued over whether to expand it or scrap it in favor of a public single-payer plan. But not much attention has been given to going beyond the Affordable Care Act to take on the root cause of our nation’s most serious health problems: a corporate system that profits by sickening people.
Continue reading Beyond Obamacare: Stopping Corporations from Making People Sick
Corporations and Health Watch 