As someone who has been politically active for a while now, it’s been curious to see how alliances have shifted in my lifetime, with some institutions once historically left now going right and vice-versa. Some will insist that Donald Trump caused this shift – others might argue this shift caused Trump.
Perhaps the clearest example of switching political dance partners is Corporate America and unions. Corporations embracing globalism abroad and mass migration at home has alienated blue-collar workers, providing Trump with the muscle to overpower the Republican Party into its current form. In the Democrats’ November post-mortem, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was quick to blame his side’s historic losses on this fact. Others on the left have shown no such self-awareness, doubling down on the unpopular issues that led to their defeat: transgenderism, protesting Israel, energy foolishness, and so on.
But an even greater instance of swapping political dance partners is Big Pharma. Historically, Republicans supported the pharmaceutical industry on general free-market grounds, and in response, they supported our campaigns. But Big Pharma hasn’t exactly been our friend of late, with its exploitation of both the COVID “pandemic,” pushing of medication abortions, and transgender hysteria. So it’s unsurprising that one of Big Pharma’s best dance partners now is … Bernie Sanders.
And amidst this, Big Pharma is trying to pull the old Potomac Two-Step, attacking a federal program that helps mostly conservative people – ostensibly on conservative grounds – just so they can conserve more of their own money.
There’s an advocacy group called Building America’s Future, which has mounted a high-budget, multistate campaign against the federal 340B program. The campaign alleges that 340B subsidizes healthcare for illegal aliens and gender transitions for minors, thereby “secretly sabotaging [the president’s] agenda.” This campaign is running in Nebraska, North Dakota, Kentucky, and Utah – the home state of both myself and my former boss, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R), who helped create 340B more than 30 years ago.
What 340B actually does, however, is help low-income, frequently uninsured patients afford prescription drugs. Under the law, if the makers of said drugs are also benefiting from taxpayer-funded programs like Medicaid, then 340B requires them to sell medicine at a discount to qualifying hospitals. Building America’s Future – almost certainly thanks to generous support from Big Pharma – is targeting these states because they’re all considering legislation that would expand the federal program at the local level.
Many of said hospitals are in rural areas, supporting rural, working-class communities that voted overwhelmingly in favor of re-electing the president. Kentucky is among the states most reliant on 340B, with almost 75 qualifying clinics and hospitals. It’s also among the Trumpiest in the country, with Corncrackers voting for him by almost two to one.
So one has to conclude that, at 340B locations in Kentucky, resources are overwhelmingly spent on Trump voters rather than illegal immigrants and underage trans stuff. But any amount of money lost here is too much for Big Pharma. And if 340B can be undone, pharmaceutical companies will no longer have to offer those discounts. They’re trying to trick red America into shooting itself in the foot.
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It’s even more ironic that Big Pharma is trying to hammer 340B in Kentucky, given that the damage from the opioid epidemic in Appalachia, in which the Bluegrass State sits, is all Big Pharma’s fault. (This is why the TV show “Dopesick” is set in Appalachian coal mining country.) In Kentucky, it’s notably all due to Purdue’s horrible distribution of OxyContin.
But it’s beyond the realm of simple irony for Pharma to insist we need to “protect” minors from transgender hormone treatments. Because the institution that has been pushing – and profiting – from this hysteria is, of course … Pharma itself.
Pharmaceutical giants like Eli Lilly, Viatris, AbbVie, ASCEND Therapeutics, Pfizer, Novartis, and Endo International are all major companies cashing in on the high-profit transgender hormone market. Big Pharma knows if they can get a brainwashed kid hooked on non-FDA-approved puberty blockers, they have a client for life.
The worst drug dealers in America nowadays aren’t inner-city thugs; they’re guys in white lab coats.
And business is booming. Eli Lilly’s revenue at the end of the year was almost $41 billion, up 27.4 percent from 2023. Companies like this can comfortably afford to keep providing federally mandated discounts at qualifying hospitals under the 340B program. And if they want to make sure that children aren’t mutilated by life-altering drugs, they can stop making them.
It takes two to tango, but with Big Pharma playing political musical chairs, let’s tell them we aren’t going to dance.
Jared Whitley has worked in the US Senate and White House. He has an MBA from Hult business school in Dubai. In 2024, the Top of the Rockies competition named him the best columnist in the Intermountain West.
