Doing their part to make health care as unaffordable as possible, the pharmaceutical industry.

More good stuff from the folks that get unbelievable incentives and tax breaks from the crack whores that are supposed to be looking out for our interests in
Washington D.C.. The same folks that spend more than 3 times as much on advertising than they do on R&D.

Now they're shoveling big bucks to state legislatures to try to stop them from reducing spending on prescription drugs.

WASHINGTON, April 6, 2006 Fighting a flurry of legislative and public
policy initiatives aimed at reducing prices and slicing drug budgets, the
pharmaceutical industry spent more than $44 million on
lobbying state governments in 2003 and 2004, a Center for Public Integrity
analysis of lobbying records has found.

Securing approval of the
Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003,
legislation termed "historic" and "breakthrough" by PhRMA, is considered to be
among the pharmaceutical industry's most substantial victories. The law yielded
the first prescription drug coverage under Medicare — a benefit that according
for 2006 through 2015 is likely to cost the government more than $1 trillion
according to March 2006 Congressional Budget Office estimates. The legislation
was passed after a sustained lobbying campaign in the states and in Washington,
D.C.