Let's See If I Might Sum Up The Decade -- On US Pharma Reform -- In About Four Paragraphs...

Many have capably written -- at this week's end -- about pharma having 'run the table', on avoiding both bad outcomes, and garnering new patent monopoly periods. . . from this Congress, and the administration. They are right.

I've been writing for over a decade here, on efforts to reform US health care deleivery. And arguably, with the exception of the ACA of 2010, pharma lobbying. . . has always won out.

So it is, again -- as the decade ends. With a whimper -- not a bang. . . .

Any talk from 45 about reimportation is. . . impotent. It will never happen. There is universal agreement among those of us who actually know what's going on, in those markets -- about that. Canada's drug market is just too darn small, and Florida's alone. . . is just too darn big. 45's contrary statements are simply. . . lies. And not even remotely his most shocking ones. Here endeth that lesson.

Finally -- almost trivially -- on the ACA's future vitality: just to be clear, Chief Justice Roberts has [as we've copiously blogged] already authored a controlling majority opinion that says Congress has broad power to "tax and spend" -- and not to. . . spend. That's all that is being vainly re-litigated, out of Texas. All. . . simply sound; no fury. In sum, the Fifth Circuit opinon will be overturned, if the matter ever reaches the Supremes again.

Oh. And that Boeing Starliner capsule is now safely on the ground in the high desert of White Sands, New Mexico. . . it has been renamed Calypso -- after Cousteau's vessel. Now you know. Onward.

नमस्ते