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House MA votes 128-22 to overturn 2008 ban on doctor bribes
By Kaz on Wed, 04/27/2011 - 3:08pm
The State House News Service has announced a 128-22 vote in favor of repealing a gift ban instituted by the state only 3 years ago. This ban prevented pharmaceutical and medical device companies from lobbying doctors with gifts like dinners and other free swag.
Opponents of the ban claim it hurts the local restaurant industry because they can't spend lavish amounts of money on dinners for doctors to hear the wonderous benefits of their products. However, the article doesn't mention how much money must have been spent by these same lobbyists at Beacon Hill restaurants instead in order to convince the current House to vote in favor of this gift ban repeal. In fact, supporters argue that the local economy and convention center hasn't been hurt at all by the ban. They argue that meal tax revenue is up and the BCEC has plans to grow.
Furthermore, this was put in as an amendment to the 2012 state budget. It's not immediately clear what pharma/medical device company gifting to doctors has to do with the state budget. The last time the House attempted to repeal the gift ban it was in an economic development bill and the Senate killed the amendment. This time it will be up to the Senate to kill it again when they take up their budget bill version in the next month.
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Comments
Is there any way to find out...
...who voted in favor of this?
House Roll Call #43
Here's a link: Roll Call #43 for adoption of Bradley Amendment (amendment #230) to House Bill H3400 (2012 budget).
Here's how to Find My Legislator to figure out which one is yours.
It's notoriously hard to navigate, but...
Here's the state legislature website, specifically the House Ways & Means Budget for FY2012.
If you find out, let me know!
http://www.malegislature.gov/Budget/FY2012/House
Transparency much?
So I navigated my way to the amendments list,(link here) then paged through to find #230, clicked on the number to get the text of the amendment and, lo and behold, the entire text reads:
That's it.
Why are doctors so scared of transparency?
It not only removed the "gift" ceiling, but also removed a clause that forced corporations to report the bribes they give doctors. What are they afraid of? That is the scariest part, to me. Doctors and politicians have lost all legitimacy in MA if this passes, since they both do what corporations pay them to do instead of what is in the voters/patients best interests. You dont need to pay for a doctors vacation to have him or her prescribe the best drug, just to prescribe the one they would not otherwise prescribe.
No one pays for a Dr.s
No one pays for a Dr.s vacation. No drug company pays for anything for a physician short of a meal. The exception may be some patient education material. Very limmited on educational texts and models and absolutely no pens, pads, mousepads or office supplies. The fact of the matter is, physicians have little time outside of their practice to keep up with current trends. Bringing in a respected thought leader helps them to better treat their patients in a disease state in that they may be under-educated. Meals at a restaurant are provided with a physician speaker, with FDA approved materials. Furthermore, the value comes when a physican has the ability to ask questions of a specialist in a field that they may have less understanding. Please increase your own legitimacy by having a better understaning of the true nature of this bill. Now with regards to insurance companies, lobbyists and politicians, there is virtually no regulation of gift giving. Ponder that...
If Pharma companies want to host events
that's fine- but there's no reason why Doctors shouldn't be able to pay to attend. Anyway, I think we'd all be better served if doctors get most of their info from medical journals, colleagues, or some kind of non-commercial continuing education.
Hurting Restaurants?
As a North End resident, I can assure you that the Restaurant business in this town is not suffering in any way shape or form. Thanks for another screwing Beacon Hill.
Unless I'm reading it wrong,
Unless I'm reading it wrong, the house is not just corrupted, but supermajority corrupted.
I guess they felt it was fundamentally unjust
for lobbyists to be able to ply legislators with food, booze, and vacations while hungry doctors are denied the right to eat, drink, and carouse courtesy of their friends in the pharmaceutical industry. The consciences of our legislators just couldn't tolerate the hypocrisy.
Best book never written:
"The consciences of our legislators"
What I said on Facebook when I linked the article
These politicians are DOUBLY stupid.
1) It's a good law, stop messing with it.
2) Since they're not lobbying doctors, they're spending their money lobbying the politicians to get the law repealed. HOLD OUT AS LONG AS YOU CAN!
Geez, do these guys not know how to maximize rewards or what?
The fact is
Massachusetts is the ONLY state with this silly ban. The fact is, the LOW COST GENERICS PRODUCERS are the ones who NEED to have EDUCATIONAL MEETINGS with doctors because they have to explain that their product is cheeper and does the same thing as the big drug companies.
The BIG DRUG COMPANIES just spend all their time now ON TV and Superbowl advertizing while the little generics get pushed out.
Big drug companies LOVE the ban on educatinal dinners for doctors, it eliminates their competition.
Open your eyes, repealing this ban is a good thing, on all sides.
Wake up
The generics market is largely run by the big pharmaceutical companies these days too. If they don't own the generic company of their choice, then they are paying the generic company NOT to work on their biggest seller so that they can keep reaping rewards on the named brand version.