The lies on Kirk Adams campaign website are adding up. Both GilbertWatch and S.H.I.E.L.D. have already exposed Kirk’s lie on his website that he authored the 2011 Arizona Budget. He didn’t. It was Senator Andy Biggs.
Here’s another. Kirk Adams has been lying on his website, in radio ads, and to anybody who will listen that Matt Salmon lobbied Congress for ObamaCare. This is an outright LIE.
Adams provides as “proof” 7 quarterly disclosure statements showing Matt’s name as one of 4 partners who represented two different pharmaceutical companies: Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company, and Lundbeck, Inc.
Kirk Adams repeatedly states that Matt Salmon lobbied to expand ObamaCare. That’s a LIE.
In fact, NONE of his partners lobbied for ObamaCare. None.
Every paragraph relating to this issue on Kirk Adams website contains LIES. I lost count.
Adams hopes you’ll get lost in the complexity of this issue, explained below. He knows that it’s easy to make ugly, false charges against Matt Salmon, and difficult for Matt Salmon to defend himself.
Here is the Truth for the Thoughtful Reader:
John Haddow, Matt Salmon’s partner in Policy Impact Communications, Inc., defended his two long term clients, Takeda Oncology Company and Lundbeck, against a money grab by the hospitals. In the world of pharmaceuticals, Takeda and Lundbeck are among the 40% that are considered “small companies.”
If John had sat on his hands, it would have killed his clients’ ability to continue manufacturing Orphan Drugs, which is a substantial part of their business. But he didn’t sit on his hands. John Haddow fought to remove a damaging provision in the PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) of 2010, better known as ObamaCare.
Both of John Haddow’s long term clients produce drugs for rare diseases. Most of their products have what is known as an Orphan Drug designation. This means they treat a population base of no more than 200,000 people and in many cases much less. These diseases include rare forms of cancer, muscular dystrophy, hemophilia, auto immune disorders, etc.
With such a small market for these Orphan Drugs, there is very little incentive to manufacture them. The pricing of these drugs is critical to their survival, and the patients who need them.
Enter 340B. As originally written 340B was a federal pricing program designed to reduce the amount that “safety net” providers (community hospitals in rural areas) had to pay for patient drugs. Orphan Drugs were always given an exemption in the 340B pricing model because of their special status and low population of patients.
The big hospitals offered their support for the ObamaCare health care bill, if they could get a provision that would put more money in their pockets to the detriment of the very patients they are supposed to serve.
In the original draft of the ObamaCare legislation they sought to change the definition of “eligible” hospitals to include critical access hospitals (CAH’s), and many others. They also wanted the 340B cut rate pricing to include Orphan Drugs. The hospitals have repeatedly attempted to expand the 340B cut-rate drug pricing as a means of cutting their own costs.
Further, this new healthcare bill assesses fees to pharmaceutical companies that are extremely onerous to small companies. These firms do not have the volume in sales to make up for these additional costs. To have allowed the 340B program to expand would have forced the companies to withdraw from the marketplace for many of these Orphan Drugs and leave the patients at risk who are suffering from these rare diseases.
John Haddow’s job was to educate the committee staff of the impact this would have on patients who rely upon these Orphan products. His effort was strongly supported by the National Organization of Rare Diseases (NORD). Together, they fought to scale back the expansion of this program as outlined in the ObamaCare bill and to keep the status quo in place.
John Haddow and NORD were successful because the evidence was strongly on their side.
These small pharmaceutical companies opposed ObamaCare. However, they knew full well that if ObamaCare was enacted into law, this change was critical to their survival.