pharmaceutical research

Today debate will heat up in the house over the spending bill for the rest of the fiscal year. One of the biggest issues is going to be over the F-35 fighter jet, specifically the engine. President Obama and Secretary Gates have called for putting a hold on spending for the engine. Even George Bush did the same thing in his last year in office. None of that matters to people like John Boehner though:

The engine battle pits Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates — who say the engine would waste almost $3 billion over the next few years — against GOP leaders like House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, whose state is a chief beneficiary. The spending measure includes $450 million for the engine, which would be built by the General Electric Co. and Rolls-Royce in Ohio, Indiana and other states.

This is an earmark, plain and simple, but to show how bad of an earmark it is, let’s have a look at the history of the F-35 development.

The new generation fighter jet has been in production since 2003, with the first test flight was in 2006. The original contract, which was awarded in 2001 for ten years, has been extended to 2016.

Health care reform is being totally screwed up by the party that has pushed for it for years – the Democrats. Here’s two very interesting stories that go along with the cost containment issues I have been talking about this week.

First up we have some Democrats, along with the White House and Pharma working to keep the sky-high prices of drugs:

The White House, aided by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), is working hard to crush an amendment being pushed by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to allow for the reimportation of pharmaceutical drugs from Canada, Senate sources tell the Huffington Post.

As a result, the Senate health care debate has come to a standstill: Carper has placed a "hold" on Dorgan's amendment and in response, Dorgan tells HuffPost, he'll object to any other amendments being considered before he gets a vote on his.

And here is the kind of savings we would see:

Within a decade, reimportation would save consumers roughly $80 billion and the federal government $19 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But that would mean $100 billion more in lost revenue than the powerful Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) lobby agreed to bear-- in exchange for being supportive of the overall health reform effort.