Zogenix (NASDAQ:ZGNX) slumps 33% after hours in reaction to its announcement of “successful” results from a Phase 3 clinical trial
evaluating two doses of Fintepla (fenfluramine oral solution) (ZX008)
in patients with a severe form of childhood-onset epilepsy called
Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.
The company says the higher dose met the primary
endpoint of the change from baseline in seizure frequency at up to 20
weeks compared to placebo which is typically the average value. However,
it reported the median value without including the data range so the
results may not have been statistically valid. The results for the lower
dose were not statistically significant.
GW Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:GWPH), whose Epidiolex (cannabidiol) was approved for Lennox-Gastaut in June 2018, is up 9% after hours.
Advocates of government‐run health care have an ignoble tradition of cloaking their ideas in the rhetoric of choice:
In 2009 and thereafter, President Barack Obama repeatedly promised,
“If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health
care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.” He
promptly thew millions of Americans out of health plans they themselves
chose, liked, and wanted to keep.
Sen. Bernie Sanders says,
“If you are a human being, regardless of your immigration status, you
have a right to health care.” Sanders’ actual proposals, however, would
take health care rights away from everyone. His “Medicare for All”
proposal would take away Americans’ right to purchase the health care
they want by increasing taxes so much the average household’s after‐tax
income would drop by an estimated $35,000.
Just to be sure you cannot exercise your right to choose your health
plan, Sanders would outlaw private health insurance. Finally, he would
violate the right of immigrants to purchase the health care they want by
stopping them at the border.
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who appears to have won the Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, carries on that ignoble tradition.
Buttigieg proposes not a health care system of “Medicare for All,” but of “Medicare for All Who Want It.” Buttigieg purportedly proposes to turn Medicare into a “public option”
where all Americans the choice of participating in the program without
compulsion. “I trust the American people to make the right choice for
them,” Mayor Pete says. “Not my way or the highway.”
Buttigieg’s rhetoric obscures the fact that his plan would create
a single‐payer health program and reduce Americans’ health care choices
no less than Sanders’ plan would.
Before we examine how Buttigieg proposes to reduce Americans’ health
care choices, let’s examine what a program of “Medicare for All Who Want
It” would look like.
If Mayor Pete were really proposing Medicare for All Who Want It, he
would let taxpayers choose whether or not they participate in the
Medicare program. All who want Medicare could continue to pay taxes into
the current system. All who don’t want Medicare could instead
put those would‐be tax dollars into a personal account they themselves
own and control. Taxpayers who opt out of Medicare could invest those
funds, use them to make their own health care decisions in their later
years, and even pass them down to their children and grandchildren. All
who want to remain in the current Medicare system would get the finest
health care the government can deliver with whatever funds their
neighbors are willing to hand over to the government voluntarily.
If he were really proposing to turn Medicare into a “public option,”
Buttigieg would also make it an option for current enrollees. Instead of
pushing them into the traditional, fee‐for‐service Medicare program,
Medicare for All Who Want It would subsidize current enrollees with
a check–just like Social Security does–and let them choose whether to
spend that money on traditional Medicare or other health‐insurance
options. To ensure equity, older and sicker enrollees will get bigger
Medicare checks than younger, healthier enrollees. To ensure a level
playing field, traditional Medicare will get no subsidies from the
federal treasury aside from the funds that Americans who want Medicare
voluntarily contribute to the program.
Instead, Buttigieg proposes to continue to force taxpayers to
participate in Medicare whether they want it or not. Indeed, he would
ramp up the compulsion.
He would force Americans to pay (at least) an additional $1.7 trillion
in taxes — more than all the on‐budget tax increases in ObamaCare
combined — whether they want to pay those additional taxes or not.
Buttigieg’s plan thus reaffirms that a “public option,” as its intellectual father Jacob Hacker admitted, is not about expanding choice but leaving Americans with no choice:
Someone once said to me, “This is a Trojan Horse for
single‐payer,” and I said, “Well, it’s not a Trojan Horse—it’s right
there! I’m telling you: we’re going to get there, over time, slowly.”
Prof. Jacob Hacker
acknowledges the purpose of a “public option” is to eliminate private
insurance and create a government‐run single‐payer health system.
In the end, Buttigieg’s plan is not “Medicare for All Who
Want It.” It is instead a single‐payer, “Medicare for All” plan with
additional layers of deceptive rhetoric. Both Buttigieg’s and Sanders’
plans would deny Americans the right to make their own health care
decisions and hand those decisions to a government‐run single‐payer
system. Mayor Pete is just doing more to hide the fact. https://www.cato.org/blog/buttigiegs-medicare-all-who-want-it-fraud
Collegium Pharmaceutical (NASDAQ:COLL) +8.3% after-hours on news it agrees to acquire the U.S. rights to the Nucynta franchise from Assertio Therapeutics (NASDAQ:ASRT) for $375M; ASRT +56.7%.
Collegium calls the deal “financially
transformative… We expect the acquisition to improve annual EBITDA and
operating cash flows by more than $100M.”
The company says the Nucynta franchise, which
includes an extended-release and an immediate release formulation of
tapentadol, is supported by patents with expires in mid-June 2025, with
the potential for a six-month pediatric extension.
