Human Health, Antibiotics and Industrial Farms

H.R. 1549, the Preservation of Antibiotics For Medical Treatment Act of 2009  now under consideration by the House, would limit the amount of antibiotics that can be used on factory animal farms.  “The farm lobby’s opposition makes its passage unlikely,” The New York Times reported Monday.

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Robert Parry on what's at stake in Health Care Reform

As many as 119 million Americans would shift from private coverage to the government plan,” one of the industry’s chief protectors, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote in a column for Politico.com.

Though some analysts question the 119 million estimate, it has transformed the debate over health-care reform into something of a death match for the private insurance industry, especially because it’s a good bet that many of the 50 million uninsured also would opt for a public plan, since they’ve been heartlessly left out in the cold by the private industry. 

How Pharma and Insurance Intend to Kill the Public Option

             Friday, June 05, 2009  by Robert Reich

And What Obama and the Rest of Us Must Do

 

 

I'ved poked around Washington today, talking with friends on the Hill
who confirm the worst: Big Pharma and Big Insurance are gaining ground
in their campaign to kill the public option in the emerging health care
bill.

You know why, of course. They don't want a public option that would
compete with private insurers and use its bargaining power to negotiate
better rates with drug companies. They argue that would be unfair.
Unfair? Unfair to give more people better health care at lower cost?
To Pharma and Insurance, "unfair" is anything that undermines their profits.