Dissident Politics: Bits: COVID vaccine price gouge, etc.

From the ruthless capitalism files: Here it comes again. Unregulated markets running free, wild and butt naked are about to screw us royally. Again. Ars Technica writes:

Moderna CEO: 400% price hike on COVID vaccine
“consistent with the value”

Lawmakers have already called Pfizer's similar plan “pure and deadly greed”

Moderna is considering raising the price of its COVID-19 vaccine by over 400 percent—from $26 per dose to between $110 and $130 per dose—according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

The plan, if realized, would match the previously announced price hike for Pfizer-BioNTech's rival COVID-19 vaccine.

Until now, the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have been purchased by the government and offered to Americans for free. In the latest federal contract from July, Moderna's updated booster shot cost the government $26 per dose, up from $15–$16 per dose in earlier supply contracts, the Journal notes. Similarly, the government paid a little over $30 per dose for Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine this past summer, up from $19.50 per dose in contracts from 2020.

Note the standard capitalist moral justification here, “consistent with the value.” Nothing is said about cost to make and distribute the vaccine, whose price has already increased once by ~70% for Moderna and ~55% for Pfizer. Even worse, US taxpayers spent at least $1 billion to de-risk the development of Moderna’s COVID vaccine. Now the capitalists return the favor by blowing us all a “consistent with the value” raspberry and jacks the price up again, this time about 4-fold (400%).

We all know how this will play out in congress. Democrats will complain and try too do something, Republicans will block it, claiming they are fighting against socialist tyranny (to most Republicans there is no such thing as price gouging) and us taxpayers will get price gouged as usual. Unregulated capitalism and health care just do not mix.

---------------------------

The radicalized Republican Party: A WaPo opinion piece continues a wave of analysis what appears to reflect an awakening by some of the mainstream media that the GOP is a radicalized, anti-democratic political power. Jennifer Rubin opines:

There are no moderate House Republicans

Listen to the mainstream media’s coverage of House Republicans, and you might think there is a mass of “normal” Republicans who do not buy into election denial, who are not apologists for former president Donald Trump, and who understand that the party’s crazy talk and election conspiracy theories contributed to its historic underperformance in the 2022 midterms.

The mystery: Where are these people hiding?

Prime suspects would be the 18 Republicans from districts that Joe Biden won in 2020, such as Reps. David Schweikert (Ariz.), Don Bacon (Neb.) and Thomas H. Kean (N.J.). Yet every single one of them voted 15 times to make Kevin McCarthy, an election denier, the speaker of the House.

Every single one of them also voted for the rules package that the House passed this week, which sets up a standoff over the debt limit, creates a committee to “investigate” ongoing criminal cases and hobbles the Office of Congressional Ethics. Nor did they didn’t bat an eye over reports that McCarthy (Calif.) promised to give more seats on the Rules Committee to MAGA radicals. Pretty immoderate behavior.

Rarely if ever do the media grill these (im)moderate members on their enabling of the far right. Frankly, reporters do a disservice to the voters by characterizing them as somehow more sensible than the Freedom Caucus crazies. With the House as closely divided as it is, it would take only a few of them to defeat radical measures. Yet time and again, they cave.

---------------------------

Opinion poll on the Supreme Court: A Gallup poll from last august indicates that most Americans believe the court is partisan political. However, the difference in perceptions by Democrats (13% approve) and Republicans (74% approve) is big.

The Hill comments: “Two-thirds of the public s upport term limits. But Republicans have little incentive to back legislation that, from their perspective, solves a nonexistent problem.”

Since rank and file Republicans like what they see in the current Supreme Court, does that make them as a group authoritarian or fascist, even if most are partly or mostly unaware of what the Christofascist court they approve of is doing?

---------------------------

Egads!! The debt ceiling problem is upon us right now!: The Ap writes:

The federal government is on track to max out on its $31.4 trillion borrowing authority as soon as this month, starting the clock on an expected standoff between President Joe Biden and the new House Republican majority that will test both parties’ ability to navigate a divided Washington, with the fragile global economy at stake.

Once the government bumps up against the cap — it could happen any time in the next few weeks or longer — the Treasury Department will be unable to issue new debt without congressional action. The department plans to deploy what are known as “extraordinary measures” to keep the government operating. But once those measures run out, probably mid-summer, the government could be at risk of defaulting unless lawmakers and the president agree to lift the limit on the U.S. government’s ability to borrow.

I didn’t realize this nasty issue was coming alive so soon. Let the bickering, slandering and posturing commence. Unleash the Jim (Jordan), the Marjorie (MTG), the Matt (Gaetz) and the Kevin (McCarthy)!!!