Today’s NY Times editorial gives grudging credit to Pres. Bush for an executive order that will prevent certain unfair tactics that have been used delay the use of generic drugs. His decision has won universal praise.
The Times minimized their praise by calling it “election-year politics.” They’re probably right, but it still leaves the question of why President Clinton never took this action.
Note that this isn’t a recent problem; the cited editorial mentions cases going back to 1982. The financial benfit to drug buyers is estimated at $3 billion per year IIRC, which is a substantial amount. Clinton was generally happy to use executive orders. So, why not it this case? Here are some theories, although none of them seems persuasive:[ol][]Maybe Bush’s executive order is flawed, legally or practically, and the Clinton administration properly rejected such an action.[]Maybe the problem has gotten bad only recently.[]Maybe the Clinton administration never thought of it.[]Maybe Clinton was protecting the pharmaceutical companies.Maybe Clinton was protecting the lawyers who file these suits.[/ol]So, the question for debate is, Why didn’t Bill Clinton put our a similar executive order when he was President? Or, more generally, why didn’t any past President do this?
This is such an easy question to answer. Clinton is evil. He’s more evil than Hitler. Yes, I invoked Godwin’s law right here in the very first response! But for Clinton, well, my goodness, you just need to look at his shifty beady eyes and know the analogy is apt.
But I’m not going to blame only Clinton for this fiasco. No, I put the responsibility on each and every one of the Democrat Presidents that have been in office since 1982.
december, the last line of the OP leads me to ask why you’re putting the spotlight on Clinton?
Now I’m not Clinton fan, but the title of your OP as well as the OP itself would have made for gread debate if you’d simply asked why no past president addressed the prescription drug patent issue.
– Clinton was the President directly before W. Chances are this problem may not have changed that much in only two years.
– Clinton had a full 8 years to act, while Bush 41 had only 4.
– As a Democrat, Clinton would be thought more likely to oppose big pharmaceutical companies than Bush 41 or Reagan.
– Clinton was a master politician.
– Clinton frequently made use of executive orders.
And, there’s a debating point. The Times minimized the credit to Bush by calling his action, “political.” We Bush defenders use the Clinton example to refute that charge.
I’m certainly glad GWB is doing something to rein in this sleezy practice, but the fact that Clinton didn’t tackle the problem means that, when GWB does take a crack at it, he isn’t doing so for any political reasons? Huh?
I think it’s because ice cream doesn’t have bones.
Of course, we can probably count on Bush to rescind his executive order in a few months once pharmaceuticals are out of the radar screeen. Just like he is now trying to slash the increase in funding for the SEC that he himself proposed and signed into law during the whole accounting fiasco. What’s changed? Well, the press isn’t focused on fraudulent business practices anymore…so it’s safe to go back on his word. Like he did on so many other issues.
It’s a shame that Bush is living up to every accusation and derogatory comment that his opposition makes against him.
Sigh — since 1982, there have been 12 years of Republican administrations and 8 of Democratic ones. december, please explain why you blame 100% of the problem on 40% of the administrations. Yes, we already know why you did; I just want to know if you know.
It’s good to see the Yllabian Flombasters of the Sarkon system have finally come around on this issue. They have historically opposed any legislation they perceive as antitrust, and it’s good to see that W has made some headway with them, especially considering the damage Clinton did with his ill-fated exucutive order: All Yllabians Can Bite my Bony Redneck Ass.
This doesn’t really strike me as belonging in GD. For one thing, I don’t really see how it would be possible to offer a cite for what Clinton was thinking several years ago. At best, it’ll be an argument of the “Did!” “Didn’t!” variety. Perhaps this belongs in IMHO.
Not knowing anything about this, I’ll make a few wild guesses.
Clinton’s experience with the Universal Health Care fiasco made him gunshy of getting out in front of the pack on health care issues;
It never occurred to him. (This explanation is the most likely - while this has been going on for decades, it hasn’t been a story in the press (and therefore not on politician’s radar screens) for very long);
Clinton realized that an Executive Order like the one Bush signed exceeds executive authority and decided not to issue it. Whether this is accurate will be determined when this issue ends up in court (which I’m sure it will);
Too busy Making World Safe for Democracy; and
Decided political capital would be better used modifying welfare reform law/convincing Congress to appropriate funds to safeguard Russian nukes/not getting impeached.
Not knowing anything about this, I’ll make a few wild guesses.
Clinton’s experience with the Universal Health Care fiasco made him gunshy of getting out in front of the pack on health care issues;
It never occurred to him. (This explanation is the most likely - while this has been going on for decades, it hasn’t been a story in the press (and therefore not on politician’s radar screens) for very long);
Clinton realized that an Executive Order like the one Bush signed exceeds executive authority and decided not to issue it. Whether this is accurate will be determined when this issue ends up in court (which I’m sure it will);
Too busy Making World Safe for Democracy; and
Decided political capital would be better used modifying welfare reform law/convincing Congress to appropriate funds to safeguard Russian nukes/not getting impeached.
Now that I have a couple of more seconds I can finish my thought.
The “Patent Scam” was actually a byproduct of the Hatch-Waxman Act passed in 1984. Clinton didn’t do anything about it because a study commissioned in 1994 showed that the act was actually effective.
It wasn’t until recently that drug companies have started to do the real shady stuff to keep their patents. Stuff like changing pill color, or a single non-active ingredient, and tying up the patent in the courts.
So, Regan had four-six years to look at this, Bush 41 had four years, Clinton had eight and W took care of it two years into his term. In some bizarro world where partisan politics are the only thing that matters, this means Republicans screwed up for ten to twelve years before they noticed and fixed this problem, and Democrats screwed around for eight years and didn’t get around to either noticing or fixing it, one of the two. Hmm, give the Dems two to four more years in office, and if they didn’t fix it, then we can say they’re worse than the Republicans.
Allow me to say, this is deeply stupid. As noted by light strand, the effects of this loophole weren’t really well understood until recently. There may have been some cases where it was being exploited as far back as '84, but some cases of exploitation are not grounds enough for signing an executive order which, arguably, oversteps Presidential authority. We need to fully analyze the situation and determine if the disease is really worse than the cure. It looks like W happened to be in office at the time this analysis was completed and took appropriate action to cure what was now conclusively considered a harmful problem. Bully for him. It doesn’t reflect AT ALL on his predecessors, no matter what party they belonged to.
Even if we go along with Bush’s claim that the previous Senate bill remedying the problem was flawed, there’s the question of why Bush waited almost two years to take action of his own, until, um, a couple of weeks before the midterm elections.
Think of all the Americans who had to choose food over medicine in the interim! The man should be pilloried and stoned.