Following President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services ( HHS), stocks fell overnight.
Kennedy will be in charge of a nearly$ 2 trillion division with responsibility for both food and medicine regulation and the administration of national health insurance programs. The National Institutes of Health ( NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ), and the Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ), which HHS controls are the pharmaceutical industry’s main recruiting centers. The industry is gearing up for generational changes that threaten Wall Street’s bottom line, according to Kennedy, who ran for president and finally campaigned for Trump as the party’s general antagonist.
After receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in efforts from the pharmaceutical market, which is now concerned about Kennedy’s plans to end aggressive marketing practices and reduce tax subsidies, senators on the Senate Finance Committee will vote initially on Kennedy’s candidacy.
Pharmaceutical activists almost surely call politicians after drug-money-lined campaign contributions to both parties, despite the majority of Republican senators ‘ largely silent on how they might ballot on Kennedy’s assurance.
Pharmaceutical companies contributed more than$ 6.7 million between 2019 and 2024 to lawmakers, according to a Federalist study of market donations to Senate Finance Committee members that OpenSecrets compiled. This will establish whether Kennedy receives a total vote from the upper room. Democratic lawmakers took more than twice as much business income, though five people were excluded from The Federalist’s examination because two lost their current races, two are retiring, and one, Sen. George Helmy of New Jersey, was appointed just a little over two months ago.
Liberals on the council received practically$ 460, 000 in the last five years, making Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada to be the highest victim of medical money. Cortez Masto was followed by New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan, who got more than$ 360, 000, and Oregon’s Ron Wyden, who took in nearly$ 352, 000.
On the Republican side, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina has benefitted the most across all members of the Finance Committee with more than$ 679, 000 in contributions. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana came in a close second on the committee with more than$ 667, 000 in pharmaceutical receipts, and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina came in third with nearly$ 564, 000.
Democrats raised more than$ 1.7 million across 9 members while Republicans brought in nearly$ 5 million overall from the pharmaceutical industry.
Although lawmakers have raised millions of dollars from pharmaceutical companies in anticipation of Kennedy taking over the world’s top public health organization, they do not always have to be essentially constrained. Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, for instance, who received more than$ 124, 000 from the market over five years, has held a series of roundtables essential of the market in the aftermath of the coronavirus lockdowns. Johnson’s most recent function featured a board led by Kennedy in September.
” If America fails”, Kennedy said at the Senate roundtable,” the main reason may be because we let our country find sicker, more sad, bigger, more pregnant at an increasing rate while crippling our regional security, bankrupting our federal budget with health care costs”.
” Every major pillar of the U. S. health care system as a statement of economic fact”, Kennedy added, “makes money when Americans get sick”.
Johnson already announced his support for Kennedy’s confirmation.
” I think he’ll do an extremely good job, because it’s kind of hard to refute the truth, and he’ll be laying out many truths”, Johnson told a local Wisconsin radio program.
