Confirm RFK

~ Clarissa

I’m sorry, I know everybody hates long quotes but I have to post this one:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: “Today, over 100 members of Congress support a bill to fund Ozempic with Medicare at $1,500 a month. Most of these members have taken money from the manufacturer of that product, a European company called Novo Nordisk. As everyone knows, once a drug is approved for Medicare, it goes to Medicaid.”

“And there is a push to recommend Ozempic for Americans as young as six over a condition, obesity, that is completely preventable and barely even existed 100 years ago. Since 74% of Americans are obese, the cost of all of them, if they take their Ozempic prescriptions, will be $3 trillion a year. This is a drug that has made Novo Nordisk the biggest company in Europe.”

“It’s a Danish company, but the Danish government does not recommend it. It recommends a change in diet to treat obesity and exercise. Virtually Novo Nordisk’s entire value is based upon its projections of what Ozempic is going to sell to Americans. For half the price of Ozempic, we could purchase regeneratively raised organic agriculture, organic food for every American three meals a day and gym membership for every obese American.”

I’m now completely in favor of RFK being confirmed. What he’s describing is an absolute disgrace, and it’s more of a disgrace that nobody else is talking about it.

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Published by Clarissa

20 thoughts on “Confirm RFK”

    1. He probably just made it up on the spot. RFK jr. does not let silly things like facts and data get in the way of his opinions.

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    2. Looking around, it seems like a somewhat low-ball number. I’d say maybe 80%.

      Overweight and obese are the same thing but the latter sounds unpleasant, so the nicer synonym is used

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      1. From the NIH: “Nearly 1 in 3 adults (30.7%) are overweight. . . More than 2 in 5 adults (42.4%) have obesity (including severe obesity). About 1 in 11 adults (9.2%) have severe obesity.” That’s what you see every time you interact with people. Just go anywhere in public, and it’s very clear that it’s definitely over 70%.

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  2. I think he’d be the best thing our health admins have seen in a while. He’s not wrong about the Ozempic thing, and wants to go back and do real safety testing (that was never done) on a bunch of stuff that’s already approved. I don’t care if he is a kook, he’s right, that stuff is important, and the admin has too many people who are getting back-door paid by drug companies.

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    1. I had no idea there was a plan to have Medicare pay for this stuff. We are manufacturing yet another opioid epidemic type calamity for ourselves, and I can’t believe we are so incapable of learning anything.

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  3. Being more-or-less right on one issue does not make him even remotely qualified to run HHS. This man’s only qualification is literally his last name. If he were not a Kennedy he would be the kooky guy in some office that the other employees try to avoid.

    There are tons of Republicans working in medical fields. They could have easily found a Republican candidate with an actual medical, public health, or public policy background to nominate.

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    1. The “qualifications” thing seems moot when you’re talking about bureaucracies as corrupt as our health services. I think we *need* someone who isn’t part of the industry.

      But it also seems like a stale talking point. Did you worry about the qualifications of any of the *previous* admin’s cabinet picks?

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    2. @TomW

      You may be right – I’m not too well-informed in this area – however, in most Western democracies, political appointments typically go (or are supposed to go) to the most effective person, not necessarily the best qualified candidate. So, generally you do not have a doctor as Health Secretary in the UK or a former military cadre as Defence Minister in France or an architect as the Minister for Housing in Spain and so on.

      Antipathy towards someone on account of views which are considered marginal or kooky is not enough in my opinion to disqualify someone from trying to stem the barrage of corruption inflicted by the pharmaceutical industry on the health systems of all Western countries. The accusation of nepotism, instead, is a serious charge and, if supported by substantial evidence, should be thoroughly investigated.

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      1. RFK is weird. He looks weird, talks weird, he’s just weird. I would so wish that non-weird people in public life spoke about the insanely high obedience rates – is anybody on here not in agreement that they are insanely high? – the overmedication, the problems with our food. I so wish such people existed. I don’t know why they don’t exist. But honestly, does anybody disagree that our food is horrid and our kids are overmedicated? We can get mired in the discussion of RFK’s weirdness or we can talk about these issues that affect all of us. Putting Ozempic on Medicare will bankrupt Medicare. It’s the perfectly neoliberal way to get rid of Medicare. Let’s talk about that and not drown in the issue of personalities and individual quirks.

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        2. “RFK is weird.”

          LOL, really? C’mon, the Biden cabinets were the biggest collective of assorted fruit and nutbars that I have ever seen. And unfortunately, Turdo the Second’s ridiculous attempts are a very close second ;-D

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          1. Please don’t tell me you know many people who look and speak like RFK. Because it can’t be true.

            Let’s not be like the libs and deny the evidence of our lying eyes in service of an idea. Dude is weird. But he’s right in what he said in the hearing, so that’s good.

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            1. No, I don’t know anybody else with his behavior but can sympathize as his voice and speech spasmodically clearly suffers from a neurological disorder. I am far more interested in his thoughts than his crippled language. , , ,

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        1. On a serious note, it’s really quite shocking that a lifelong leftist like Warren wouldn’t have a single negative word to say about Big Pharma. And the same goes for Sanders. Between denouncing Big Pharma and evil onesies, he chose the onesies and it’s still shocking to me. And there’s no leftist anywhere in the country who finds that bizarre. Back when I was a leftist, we were into everything that RFK now says. We were definitely against the pharma lobby. Where did all that go?

          I don’t believe anybody who hasn’t been on the left can fully understand how bizarre it feels to observe the left-most faction in US politics badger an anti-pharma dude.

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