Hillary Too Expensive? Get Chelsea Clinton at a Discount
If you’re turned off by the astronomical speaking fees commanded by the former Secretary of State and her former president husband, you have an option: You can go Clinton shopping.
Hillary and Bill Clinton earned in excess of $25 million for delivering 104 speeches between 2014 and the first three months of 2015, including $11 million that Hillary Clinton collected delivering 51 speeches, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Related: Hillary Clinton’s Achilles' Heel: Trust
While Hillary’s fees varied, they typically exceeded a quarter-million-dollars a pop and went as high as $300,000, although she generally donated the funds to the Clinton family’s global foundation.
But at least one sticker-shocked university balked at her price and settled for a bargain basement alternative – daughter Chelsea Clinton.
As The Washington Post recounted on Tuesday, officials of the University of Missouri at Kansas City were in the market for a celebrity speaker to headline a gala luncheon marking the opening of a women’s hall of fame in early 2014. Initially, they thought of inviting Clinton’s 34-year old daughter to deliver brief remarks at the event.
When Chelsea’s speaking agency responded that she probably wouldn’t be available, university officials decided to “shoot for the moon” and invite her mother, the presumptive 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, to appear instead. However, they were stunned when the answer came back that Hillary Clinton indeed would be available but it would cost them $275,000.
Related: College Students Outraged over Hillary Clinton’s Massive Speaking Fees
University officials regrouped and resumed their hunt for a speaker. Then word came back that Chelsea Clinton was available to speak after all – and for the relatively modest fee of $65,000. Likely still reeling from the Hillary demand, university officials jumped at the offer.
Chelsea Clinton appeared at the luncheon on Feb. 24, 2014, and here’s what her schedule called for: a 10-minute speech followed by a 20-minute, moderated question-and-answer session and a half-hour posing for pictures with VIPs off-stage. As with Hillary Clinton’s paid speeches at universities, Chelsea Clinton directed her fee to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
School officials said Chelsea’s appearance, which was covered by private donations, was well worth the money. Reactions to the story on social media were less positive, with anti-Clinton commentators having a field day mocking America’s one-time and perhaps future first family.
Chart of the Day: High Deductible Blues
The higher the deductible in your health insurance plan, the less happy you probably are with it. That’s according to a new report on employer-sponsored health insurance from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Los Angeles Times.
Chart of the Day: Tax Cuts and the Missing Capex Boom
Despite the Republican tax overhaul, businesses aren’t significantly increasing their capital expenditures. “The federal government will have to borrow an added $1 trillion through 2027 to pay for the corporate tax breaks,” says Bloomberg’s Mark Whitehouse. “So far, it’s hard to see what the country is getting in return.”
Chart of the Day: 2019’s Lobbying Leaders
Roll Call reports that trade, infrastructure and health care issues including prescription drug prices “dominated the lobbying agendas of some of the biggest spenders on K Street early this year.” Here’s Roll Call’s look at the top lobbying spenders so far this year:
Can You Fix Social Security? A New Tool Lets You Try
The Congressional Budget Office released an interactive tool Wednesday that shows how some widely discussed policy changes would affect the long-run financial health of the Social Security system.
“This interactive tool allows the user to explore seven policy options that could be used to improve the Social Security program’s finances and delay the trust funds’ exhaustion,” CBO said. “Four options would reduce benefits, and three options would increase payroll taxes. The tool allows for any combination of those options. It also lets the user change implementation dates and choose whether to show scheduled or payable benefits. … The tool also shows the impact of the options on different groups of people.”
Click here to view the interactive tool on the CBO website.
Why Prescription Drug Prices Keep Rising – and 3 Ways to Bring Them Down
Prescription drug prices have been rising at a blistering rate over the last few decades. Between 1980 and 2016, overall spending on prescription drugs rose from about $12 billion to roughly $330 billion, while its share of total health care spending doubled, from 5% to 10%.
Although lawmakers have shown renewed interest in addressing the problem, with pharmaceutical CEOs testifying before the Senate Finance Committee in February and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMS) scheduled to do so this week, no comprehensive plan to halt the relentless increase in prices has been proposed, let alone agreed upon.
Robin Feldman, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of Law, takes a look at the drug pricing system in a new book, “Drugs, Money and Secret Handshakes: The Unstoppable Growth of Prescription Drug Prices.” In a recent conversation with Bloomberg’s Joe Nocera, Feldman said that one of the key drivers of rising prices is the ongoing effort of pharmaceutical companies to maintain control of the market.
Fearing competition from lower-cost generics, drugmakers began over the last 10 or 15 years to focus on innovations “outside of the lab,” Feldman said. These innovations include paying PBMs to reduce competition from generics; creating complex systems of rebates to PBMs, hospitals and doctors to maintain high prices; and gaming the patent system to extend monopoly pricing power.
Feldman’s research on the dynamics of the drug market led her to formulate three general solutions for the problem of ever-rising prices:
1) Transparency: The current system thrives on secret deals between drug companies and middlemen. Transparency “lets competitors figure out how to compete and it lets regulators see where the bad behaviors occur,” Feldman says.
2) Patent limitations: Drugmakers have become experts at extending patents on existing drugs, often by making minor modifications in formulation, dosage or delivery. Feldman says that 78% of drugs getting new patents are actually old drugs gaining another round of protection, and thus another round of production and pricing exclusivity. A “one-and-done” patent system would eliminate this increasingly common strategy.
3) Simplification: Feldman says that “complexity breeds opportunity,” and warns that the U.S. “drug price system is so complex that the gaming opportunities are endless.” While “ruthless simplification” of regulatory rules and approval systems could help eliminate some of those opportunities, Feldman says that the U.S. doesn’t seem to be moving in this direction.
Read the full interview at Bloomberg News.