Blog For Iowa

These four excellent letters with progressive views were published in the Tipton Conservative paper this week. 

Support your local newspaper and consider writing a letter to the editor. If you would like to subscribe to the Tipton Conservative, click here.

We Cannot Trust Miller-Meeks
Who exactly does 1st-District U.S. House Republican Miller-Meeks represent? She objected to the first 10 drugs targeted for Medicare price cuts. She posted on “X” (former Twitter): “There are better ways to lower drug costs.” Why does she oppose Medicare-negotiated lower prices?

Miller-Meeks accepted $130,000 in campaign donations from Big Pharma. (Open Secrets). She voted against “The Inflation Reduction Act” that (a) allowed Medicare to negotiate reduced pricing and, (b) capped insulin costs at $35 (HR 5376).

Big Pharma lines the pockets of politicians like Miller-Meeks who surreptitiously protect higher costs. High prices for medications are the main reason patients skip doses.
Since 2014, medication costs have quadrupled. Medicare recipients paid $3.4 billion out-of-pocket (CNN).

Clearly, patients will benefit from Medicare-negotiated pricing, $98.5 billion over 10 years.

Also, on lower drug prices, Miller-Meeks said: “And it’s already having a negative effect both here and abroad on the pipeline for new cures.”  That pipeline for new medicines begins in the public sector: our tax dollars. It’s “a free ride for companies; yet they include it in their high estimates and multiply it…”, “…84.2% of all funds for discovering new medicines come from public sources.” (Light D.W., 2012, “Health Action International”)

In 2020, Miller-Meeks promised, “…because the people of Iowa deserve someone who will never quit fighting for them…”

It’s 2023. We cannot trust Miller- Meeks.

In 2024, candidate Christina Bohannan for 1st District U.S. House representative is eager to work for us.

Ellen Ballas
Iowa City

Drug Price Legislation
About 20 years ago Senator Grassley introduced legislation to prohibit the U.S. government from negotiating prescription drug prices. His claim was that the government was so big it could distort the free market pricing system. Here is what has happened since that time:

1) Drug companies make exorbitant profits and pay their CEO’s outrageous salaries. The CEO’s of the following com- panies list their total pay as:
–Iqvia Holdings: $38,029,517 –Allegan: $32,827,626
–Johnson and Johnson: $29,802, 564 –Pfizer: 27,913,775
–the next five highest paid CEO’s all make more than $17,000,000 last year.

2) Drug companies complain bitterly that if they must negotiate drug prices (only 10 drugs and only under Medicare) they will not have funding to continue research. Of the ten largest drug companies in the U.S., seven of them spent more on advertising and marketing than on research! Marketing exceeded research and development by $36 BILLION during the Covid outbreak (and this at a time the government was paying billions to them for new vaccines against Covid!). note: the U.S. is one of only two industrialized countries that permit advertising of prescription drugs!! Do we really need pages of small print in print ads and scenes of overweight people jogging on television?). Since prescription drugs can ONLY be prescribed by medical professionals, why do we even allow advertising unless it creates a demand by patients to get “what I saw on television?”

3) Big Pharma bought back $57 billion of their own stock between 2016-2020 after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 passed.

In a “free market,” buyers have a choice: buy a product at the given price, negotiate a better price, or go without. But many sick people cannot go without prescription drugs so they must pay what is charged. Amazingly, for the SAME drugs in other countries, ALL pay less for their prescriptions (Americans pay 256% more than 32 other countries; U.S. prices for the exact same drugs were 170% more than Mexican prices and 779% of what is paid in Turkey!).

So Americans are paying more than others, the drug companies pay their top managers big bucks, drug companies pay as much or more for advertising than research. Drug companies must negotiate pricing in ALL other countries and still make a profit. After a 20 year failed experiment of “no negotiating prices in the market,” why is Senator Grassley still saying he is for all Iowans yet Big Pharma, not Iowans, seem to be the only winner??

Mark Patton
Wilton

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Can Our Republic be Saved?

This unthinkable question has become thinkable. When asked what kind of government we had after completion of our Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787, Benjamin Franklin replied “a Republic, if you can keep it.” In over 230 years until Jan. 6, 2021, there was only one occasion when the survival of the Republic was in doubt and that was during the Civil War. Luckily for us, and the U.S., we had a president who believed saving the Republic was
worth any price.

The authors of the Constitution ‘presumed’ that our democratically elected leaders who took the oath to that Constitution would actually obey it. That was the case for 240 years, until Donald J. Trump became President. Let’s look at that oath, “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

I don’t know about you but when you place your hand on a bible and swear an oath, it should mean something. It is very clear neither the oath, the bible, nor the Constitution meant much to Donald Trump. When I think of the men and women who have taken that oath and been willing to sacrifice their lives to defend that Constitution, it makes me proud to be an American.

The words of one our greatest Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, said it best at Gettysburg, “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that governments of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

As we celebrate the anniversary of the signing of our Constitution on Sept. 17th, let us be grateful we live in a nation of laws and rededicate ourselves to preserving our democratic Republic.

Larry Hodgden
Tipton

Cedar Valley Voices
What Happened to Iowa Nice?
by Deb VanderGaast
Tipton

My husband and I took our grandson to the Old Thresher’s Reunion in Mt. Pleasant Labor Day weekend, and found ourselves forced to walk past a trailer selling anti-Biden political paraphernalia to get to the entry gate. It was bad enough that the trailer was covered with memes that would be considered bullying in a school yard, but proudly flying above the trailer was a flag that said “F**k Biden” fully spelled out. Beside it was a flag with an assault rifle.

When did it become acceptable in any public place to display profanity and weapons like this? The Old Thresher’s Reunion is a family-friendly event. Though the display was on private property, I am shocked that the organizers and local community would not ask them to take it down.

This is not the Iowa I moved to Iowa 35 years ago. In 1988, Iowa was progressive and inclusive. I chose to raise my family here because I wanted my kids to learn their values in a place where kindness and acceptance was the norm. I wanted them to learn what it means to be “Iowa Nice.”

Unfortunately, our nation’s politics have become more polarized since then, and it has affected our culture. People are treating others in ways that would have been unthinkable twenty years ago. The political rhetoric of the past would not have included the profanity, hatred and character assassination that we see today. To have this political hostility and profanity on display in public spaces is shameful. We’re sending the wrong message to our children and we are tearing our communities apart.

This political hostility does not represent what most Americans want. The 2021 Public  Agenda/USA Today/Ipsos Hidden Common Ground survey found that most Americans believe political hostility and divisiveness is a serious problem in the U.S. and that about 2/3 of Americans think more accurate, trustworthy sources of news would be most effective in bringing the country together.

We can do better. We start by being kind to members of our community, both in person and on social media. Our community needs to set expectations for civil discourse and not tolerate public displays of hate, violence, discrimination, and profanity. We need to accept differences, both physical and philosophical, without creating division within our community. We need to find common ground, disagree respectfully when necessary, and reject political hostility and divisiveness