Responding to a recent Yale study, which found that drug manufacturer Novo Nordisk is selling the popular type two diabetes drug Ozempic, which costs less than $5 to produce, for nearly $1,000, Sen. Bernie Sanders recently called on major drug companies to knock it off and stop price-gouging.

Unfortunately, however, behind the scenes, he’s quietly working to allow them to raise costs even higher.

In a recent press release, Sen. Sanders said, “The American people are sick and tired of paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs while the pharmaceutical industry enjoys huge profits,” and he made it clear that he’s using all the authority vested in him as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions to demand the companies in question stop this racket. 

Sen. Sanders provided a great statement, and I bet it riled his populist base of supporters. But his words are no different than those of the Wall Street-aligned government regulators who promised to hold the actors who exploited the American people during the 2008 recession accountable. They ring hollow and then some. 

Despite talking a great game against Big Pharma, Sen. Sanders is sponsoring legislation to help the drugmakers raise costs. 

Big Pharma has spent millions lobbying his colleagues to support and pass his bill, the Pharmacy Benefit Manager Reform Act, which will add regulations that make it more difficult for the private sector to negotiate better drug pricing deals with manufacturers. 

Almost every employer in the country uses the powerful PBM (Pharmacy Benefit Manager) groups Sanders is targeting to hold Big Pharma accountable. Because PBMs manage the health plans of thousands of employers at one time, they have a lot of juice, and it’s hard for the drugmakers to ignore their demands, leading to really good bulk pricing discounts, cheaper generic drugs, and more fairly priced brand-name products for customers. So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that everyone from President Trump’s former HHS Director to President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget director speak very highly of these groups, which a 2019 Government Accountability Office study found reduced Medicare pricing by an incredible 20% -- $145 billion --  in a single year. 

On the other side of the coin, it shouldn’t surprise anyone why Big Pharma is working so hard to shut them down. Every dollar PBMs save consumers comes out of the drugmakers’ pockets!

One would think that Sanders, who likes to position himself as one of Big Pharma’s fiercest critics, would love everything about PBMs, but it seems that he cares more about what Big Pharma does financially for his progressive allies. This legislative crusade is partisan politicking at its worst, plain and simple.  

This episode is not the first one the American people have seen in the never-ending movie of Bernie Sanders’ hypocrisy, a so-called socialist who owns three homes and flies on private jets despite professing the need to spread the wealth and ban gasoline. But it’s undoubtedly one of the most egregious of the bunch as, to paint himself as independent from the sector, the senator has gone so far as to pledge not to take any money from the pharmaceutical industry. 

It just goes to show you: you can’t trust anyone in Washington -- not even the gentlemen many casual political onlookers believe is one the country’s most foremost defenders of the middle class. 

Dr. Ben Tapper (@DrBenTapper1) is the Director of Epigenetics for The Wellness Company (@twc_health) and formerly served as its CEO. 

Image: Gage Skidmore