A Washington Post article details "a provision that was slipped into a large budget bill, which will require state Medicaid programs to pay for a brand drug for depression rather than generics which are far cheaper and generally considered to be every bit as effective." The "pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co. and other businesses secured a provision ensuring that their mental health drugs continue to fetch top price at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars to the states." Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind,) "whose district flanks Lilly’s Indianapolis headquarters," inserted the provision. Chairman Joe Barton (R-Tex) strenuously opposed the Buyers amendment. A proponent of the bill, National Alliance on Mental Illness, has "been fighting efforts to restrict access to mental health drugs for years and strongly backed the Buyer’s amendment." So, who are the National Alliance on Mental Illness? According to their website they are "nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to improving the lives of persons living with serious mental illness and their families." Look a little deeper (page 13) and you find that NAMI is funded by Eli Lilly and Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Pfizer, Inc. along with a host of others. A spokesman for Eli Lilly states "He acknowledged that his company sought the provision, but he noted that other drug companies did so as well, as did mental health advocacy groups." He doesn’t bother to mention that Eli Lilly funds these advocacy groups. As if this weren’t enough, it turns out that "Lilly has been the biggest corporate contributor to Buyer’s campaigns." The drug company has donated $46,000 to Buyer’s congressional campaigns. The article also says that "Lilly has been adept at using Washington for its own purposes" and that Congressman "Buyer’s measure underscores the excessive power that corporate interest wield on Capitol Hill."
Mark McCowen
