Drug Companies Favor Obama

Yesterday, I wrote about a claim John McCain had made in a recent ad pledging to "battle big oil." While that claim seemed dubious, McCain, in the same spot, rightly boasted about taking on drug companies.

As Bloomberg News notes today, McCain teamed up with Sen. Chuck Schumer back in 2000, and helped introduce a bill to make it easier to bring generic drugs to market. Like Barack Obama, McCain also has declared his support for the idea of importing drugs from Canada, something the pharmaceutical industry is against.

Well, the industry McCain has labeled the "Big Bad Guys" (much to Mitt Romney's dismay), appears to see a disturbing pattern from the Arizona senator. To that end, it has donated more to his opponent. According to Bloomberg, the donation tally stands at:

Obama $450,094
McCain $132,575

For comparison's sake, Hillary Clinton received $314,557 from Big Pharma in her failed bid to become president. And therein might lie the clue as to why the drug companies are reversing course and shelling out more money to Democrats in a year when health care reform threatens their bottom line. It could be that they're simply going with the side they think will win in November:

For now, the drug industry is backing Obama because of a perception he is the likely winner and because of McCain's criticism, said Peter Rost, who was a vice president of marketing at New York-based Pfizer Inc. until he was fired in 2005.

If you're looking for a head-to-head comparison of the McCain and Obama health care proposals, have a look at the analysis at the Economic Policy Institute. While I prefer Obama's, McCain should be lauded for his willingness to -- as his ad correctly states -- take on the drug companies.