Is anyone surprised that Big Pharma is bankrolling the multimillion-dollar campaign to derail Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services?
Former Vice President Mike Pence recently grabbed headlines when his new advocacy group, Advancing American Freedom, formally declared its opposition to Kennedy’s confirmation. AAF announced plans for an ad campaign and even sent mobile billboards cruising Washington during the annual Walk for Life, all under the pretext of opposing Kennedy’s stance on abortion.
Pence’s long-standing opposition to abortion rights is well documented. But what’s genuinely revealing here is who is funding Pence and AAF’s campaign against RFK. Sadly, the funder in question is Big Pharma and its beneficiaries.
It might surprise readers that Pence is now doing Big Pharma’s bidding despite his past history of working as the Number Two in the Trump administration (Big Pharma’s most notable political challenger), but it shouldn’t.
For one, Pence has developed a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. He has gone so far as to say that Trump is unqualified for office and has aligned his political brand entirely with being a foil to the sitting president. If that means positioning himself with Big Pharma to make Trump’s life harder, then so be it.
For another, Big Pharma has perfected the art of playing both sides, donating to both Democratic and Republican political figures that they deem able to help protect its affiliated drug companies’ bottom lines.
For example, when Congress added prescription drug coverage to Medicare in the early 2000s, pharmaceutical companies poured tens of millions into conservative groups to ensure the Republican-controlled House backed the legislation.
Years later, during the Obamacare debate, when Medicare and Medicaid drug price controls loomed as a serious threat, Big Pharma brokered a deal with the Obama administration. They publicly supported the Affordable Care Act so long as their profits remained untouched.
Moreover, last year, Big Pharma showered both Democrats and Republicans with campaign contributions in hopes that it would incentivize them to regulate pharmacy benefit managers, the private sector negotiating groups that prevent the drug companies from price-gouging. So, it’s not shocking that Big Pharma is now allying itself with Pence to sabotage the confirmation of RFK, America’s most prominent pharmaceutical critic. The drug companies always take all the help they can get!
Kennedy certainly gives Big Pharma a reason to stay up at night. He has pledged to end the pharmaceutical industry’s ability to blanket television stations with advertising. He has shined a spotlight on their efforts to inflate drug prices, suppress cheaper generic alternatives, and protect their monopoly pricing schemes. Kennedy has even proposed making it illegal for regulators to receive royalty payments or financial incentives tied to the regulatory approval of pharmaceutical products. To the American people, these reforms seem like common sense. But for an industry so dependent on the government to protect its profits, they are a declaration of war.
They shouldn’t represent a declaration of war for Mike Pence, though. While Pence is a staunch abortion advocate, and RFK is pro-choice, HHS has very limited authority over abortion-related matters. They are by and large states’ rights issues, especially after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. But if challenging RFK will stick it to the Trump administration, then Pence wants in! He’s become so self-serving that, at this point, he should just call it a day and join the Lincoln Project.
In the movie The Matrix, government agents could morph into any shape to maintain control over the system they built. Pence and the pharmaceutical industry are no different. Big Pharma will adopt any narrative and make any argument to keep its grip on the healthcare industry. Likewise, Pence will say anything that he deems helpful to preserving and advancing his political future.
Both camps see opposing RFK’s HHS nomination as beneficial to their personal interests, so they are moving full speed ahead against him.
The American people are much smarter than Big Pharma and Pence think. They see this political theater for what it is — theater! — and have written it off as more musings from the Deep State.
With the help of principled members of the Senate, RFK will be confirmed as America’s next HHS Secretary on Wednesday, and Big Pharma will be put on notice like never before.
Perhaps if Pence is lucky, he will get an advisory position with the trade association. He should hope so because his political future is slowly eroding — just as Trump predicted.
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Herzog is a freelance healthcare writer for the Heartland Institute