Press Releases

Big Money 20 Members Still In the Pocket of Big Pharma and Health Insurance Corporate PACs

May 11, 2020

In the first quarter of 2020, members of the Big Money 20 continued to take in contributions from corporate PACs in the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries. For a full list of contributions, see the sheet at this link.

From 1998-2017, the drug industry spent $3.7 billion on lobbying, which is $1 billion more than any other industry. Since 1990, Big Pharma has made over $210 million in campaign contributions alone. In 2018, the pharmaceutical industry hired nearly 1,470 lobbyists, nearly three lobbyists for every single member of Congress. As their lobbying efforts grew, Big Pharma continued to raise prescription drug prices, increasing the price of 3,400 prescription drugs in the first half of 2019 at an average rate of five times that of inflation.  

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