Clinton wants the federal govt to insure biotech companies against losses.

[Skwmom]

She announced this at the Biotech Conference which was a really lucrative day for Hillary. She pocketed a $335,000 speaker fee. Wow, more than a quarter of a million dollars for a speech. What a payday! I think I am safe in saying Hillary doesn't suffer from any gender pay discrepancy.

http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-all-the-six-figure-speaking-fees-that-hillary-clinton-received-after-leaving-the-state-dept-2015-5

“Maybe there’s a way of getting a representative group of actors at the table” to discuss how the federal government could help biotechs with “insurance against risk,” she said.

http://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2014/06/25/hillary-clinton-cheers-biotechers-backs-gmos-and-federal-help/

It would seem that the 1% (with all their money) are probably investing in biotechs. So now we should guarantee their losses, provide them with insurance like we do for the too big to fail banks. Really?

I wonder how many trillion that will cost us?

I wonder how much will be left over for the little people...

What in the hell form of capitalism is this?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. her second biggest contributors, after fossil fuel

Surprise,surprise!

[NWCorona]

2. ...

Good post!

[GoLeft2004]

3. K & R

No text.

[Recursion]

4. You mean, the way we do with solar energy? It's a decent idea.

Not sure why people would be against that.

[Scuba]

11. Not so much the concept that's objectionable; most don't trust Hillary to keep it on the up and up.

I haven't studied this issue, but there would be a be a wide gap between providing subsidies and insuring against losses.

[Agschmid]

18. Yup.

[Snotcicles]

5. I think that might be a good idea if the government gets some control to cap profits and

patent protection limits.

[Skwmom]

7. You shouldn't have to pay a company to cap profits and limit patent protection. What a damn joke

capitalism has become.

[Snotcicles]

9. It is so risky, expensive, and difficult to bring a drug through to FDA approval it really has a

discouraging effect on development. Because very few new drugs make it to completion. And the Universities aren't keeping up with the need for discovery.

[BernieforPres2016]

12. Coming up with extended uses for existing drugs

And developing "new and improved" drugs that basically do the same as drugs approaching patent expiration, and spending enormous sums on advertising to the public, and hordes of pharmaceutical sales reps, and bribing doctors, have higher ROIs.

Take a look at the profit margins and return on capital of big pharma (and the medical device companies) and tell me about how much they're hurting.

They leech off of taxpayer funded research and do everything they can to evade corporate taxes, such as using offshore tax havens, aggressive transfer pricing in their accounting, and corporate inversions.

It would be fine with me if we nationalized them.

[Snotcicles]

13. I was referring to mostly small pharmaceutical companies. nt

[Capt. Obvious]

8. Biotech is a bogeyman now?

[nc4bo]

10. Just wow. Sanders' is against biomedical research, even sided with the Xian Right?

http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2016-04-02-US--DEM%202016-Biomedical%20Research/id-409c42bfbb464631a2ee3ef34a19f1f0

Sanders said following a vote in 2001 that he had "very serious concerns about the long-term goals of an increasingly powerful and profit-motivated biotechnology industry." In a later vote, he warned of the dangers of "owners of technology" who are "primarily interested in how much money they can make rather than the betterment of society."

Perhaps the Senator from Vermont had some reasoning behind his "no" votes instead of simply being a medical research and technology neanderthal?

I can't find too much about the history of his votes except that snippet from 2001.

Just wondering outloud.

[MisterP]

14. and presumably they'll still get immunity for their products and can move HQ to Ireland at will

[hill2016]

15. Given the research that biotechs are carrying out

I can say I find it difficult to understand the outrage.

Since you hate biotech so much, do you commit never to being treated by any drug that comes out of the biotechnology industry?

[CharlotteVale]

16. So she's for single payer -- for corporations.

[Ruby the Liberal]

17. Backstopping losses and yet no negotiation on drug prices.

Hell, why not. What could possibly go wrong... Double down!