For some really crazy news, Akron passed a 0.25% income tax increase (ie from 2.25% to 2.5%) nearly 70% to 30%. The spending is earmarked for EMS (3/4) and Roads (1/4). I'm not aware of an income tax increase that has passed with such approval before.
Big pharma spent $75 million in Ohio against a law requiring drug prices purchased by government entities be negotiated. The law did not pass.
Issue 2 in Ohio was an odd one. Almost no advertisements from either side actually explained shit.
Pro Issue 2 stated the big pharma wanted to stop it.
Anti Issue 2 said that Issue 2 was misleading.
The issue at hand was that other than the people who put forth Issue 2, there was
no organization that supported. No nurse group, doctor group, AARP, hospital, no one! When I looked at the Anti Issue 2 website, I was curious about how almost everyone and their grandmother was against it. So I checked the organizations against it and they were legitimate and had good reasons to be against it.
In general, the law required a couple things:
- the state to pay no more for drugs than the rates for the VA
- if the Issue was challenged in court, the state of Ohio had to defend and pay the lawyers for Issue 2 to defend it
That second half of the second part was the real head scratcher, and something that seemed unsupportable. Any way, the state of Ohio already gets bulk discounts for Medicaid and seeing that most people who live in Ohio, aren't Ohio state organizations, but rather... you know people... there was no control on the costs for drugs for their health plans. The bill wouldn't touch the majority of Ohioans.
Anti-Issue 2 would go on to say that it could increase drug costs for that majority, which I don't know is true or not. What I do know is that the Issue was selling cheaper drug prices for Ohio. But:
- It didn't apply to the majority of Ohioans
- They couldn't say how much cheaper the VA price list was than the existing Ohio price list
- The VA list doesn't include all drugs
So overall, it seemed like a shoddy bill, with a funky stench regarding the 'Ohio has to pay us to help us defend the bill in court'. So a no vote seemed appropriate.