Driena Sixto: RFK Jr. is the cure to Big Pharma’s price gouging

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. struggles to answer questions on Medicare and Medicaid during a contentious confirmation hearing for a top health post. Image via AP.

Almost every presidential campaign focuses on “changing Washington.” And, almost universally, it happens on the margins, if at all. This time may be different, and nowhere is that more important than in the health care industry, which directly impacts the lives of most Americans.

Like many of President Donald Trump’s appointees, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is promising to bring bold change and to “Make America Healthy Again.”

He’s got some ideas like curtailing widespread use of dangerous pesticides, limiting pharmaceutical advertising, and stopping food stamps from being spent on processed foods … Oh yeah, and a greater emphasis on nutrition and clean living to stop Americans dying young.

He’s a direct threat to the established order.

The health care industrial complex includes many actors who make a lot of money under the current system. The pharmaceutical industry is chief among them.

It’s a great system for them and terrible for us. The U.S. has some of the highest prescription drug prices in the world by far. For every dollar paid in other wealthy countries for prescription drugs, Americans pay $2.78. Big Pharma raises prices on essential medications year after year – and at times, by more than 5,000%.

Trump, in a recent interview on Fox News, talked about the cost of Ozempic. He said, “In London, you get it for $88. In New York, you get it for $1,200 … It’s very unfair. The identical package, made in the same factory. Shipped to different places but made literally in the same factory.”

For too long, Big Pharma has been actively cozying up to policymakers, rigging the system, and preventing fair competition. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, major pharma donation recipients, were quick to viciously attack Kennedy during his confirmation.

Kennedy cut right to the problem, “By the way, Bernie, the problem of corruption is not just in the federal agencies; it’s in Congress too. Almost all the members of this panel, including yourself, are accepting millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry and protecting their interests.”

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., like other appointees and Trump himself, has been caricatured as extreme because he was an outsider who was forcing change. The fact of the matter is that spending decades selecting political appointees from the same stable of D.C. insiders has consistently failed to bring real change to Washington, D.C. Regardless of who is in power, special interests like Big Pharma get to pull their levers. Maybe this time will be different.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr may be just the cure our country needs.

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Driena Sixto is a political analyst who serves as the director of Political Action for the Miami Young Republicans and hosts the weekly online TV show “Pero, ¿Por Qué?”