FEATURED: Break ‘Em Up w/ Rep. Cori Bush: How Health Care Monopolies Hurt Patients, Health Care Workers, and Communities
Long before COVID-19 reinforced inequities and fragilities in our health care system, large health care corporations with extreme market power were harming patients, health care workers, and communities. On March 30 at 2:00 p.m. ET/11:00 a.m. PT, join Economic Liberties, People’s Action, Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01), and leading experts and advocates for a discussion and call to action on why we need leaders at all levels of government to fight health care monopolies to make our health care system more equitable and resilient. Join us and RSVP here!
The Latest
An Extraordinary Choice for the FTC: On Monday, President Biden announced he will nominate Professor Lina Khan to replace Joseph Simons at the Federal Trade Commission. In a conversation with Axios, Executive Director Sarah Miller celebrated the announcement, explaining that “Professor Khan is recognized internationally for her groundbreaking legal scholarship, her ability to work across the aisle, and her extensive policy expertise” and that “[she] will be critical for guiding the agency out of decades of severe institutional failure.” But as Miller told the Washington Post, revitalizing American antitrust enforcement isn’t a one-woman job. The President must also “replace FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra and staff the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division with anti-monopoly champions whose track records demonstrate they are similarly committed to enforcing the rule of law.”
Holding Pharma Monopolies Accountable with Rep. Katie Porter: 1 in 4 Americans with diabetes cannot afford their insulin because three corporations – Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi – that control nearly 100% of the U.S. insulin supply have long raised prices in lockstep. Last week, with 43 organizational partners and patient advocates, Economic Liberties launched Investigate Insulin Now, a new campaign to demand the Federal Trade Commission investigate and prosecute this deadly pharmaceutical cartel. At the coalition launch event, Congresswoman Katie Porter endorsed the effort and previewed demands she will be making of the agency on the issue. Read more in Politico Pulse, catch a recording of the event here, and don’t forget to share and sign our petition.
Ensuring “Access to Markets” for Entrepreneurs with Rep. Joe Neguse: Economic Liberties, Common Future, and Small Business Majority hosted Congressman Joe Neguse, experienced entrepreneurs and business owners, and experts and advocates to discuss the ways that corporate gatekeepers close markets to entrepreneurs and growing businesses and the need for policymakers to act as part of economic recovery efforts. We also launched a tip line for entrepreneurs and business owners to report anticompetitive conduct that policymakers and enforcers should know about. Catch a recording here.
A “More Unified Voice” to Take on Big Tech: Economic Liberties and Accountable Tech co-organized “Ban Surveillance Advertising,” a new coalition of nearly 40 leading national and international organizations taking aim at the business model that fuels Facebook and Google’s toxic content and undermines the financial viability of trustworthy media. Just days before Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai appear before Congress to testify on disinformation and misinformation on their platforms, the coalition rolled out a website highlighting the litany of harms driven by social media giants’ surveillance advertising business, including an explainer video and polling that shows 4 in 5 Americans support our agenda. Read more in WIRED, NBC News, The Hill, and TechCrunch.
Standing with Amazon Workers: Last month, Economic Liberties worked with People’s Action to bring together more than 40 progressive organizations to urge President Biden to publicly voice support for the unionization effort of Amazon warehouse workers currently underway in Bessemer, Alabama. Days later, President Biden released a video affirming workers’ rights to organize against corporate power. According to union organizers in Alabama, Biden’s message “eased minds that might be worried about losing their job.” Results of the vote are expected early next week. As Economic Liberties’ Executive Director Sarah Miller explained to The New York Times this morning, “the narrative is cooked now on [Amazon’s] status as a monopoly, their status as an abusive employer and their status as one of the biggest spenders on lobbying in Washington, D.C.”
Antimonopoly Fever Hits the States for the NYT: From Arizona to New York to Illinois, lawmakers across the country are debating legislation to challenge Apple and Google’s gatekeeping power over app stores. As Economic Liberties’ Pat Garofalo and Matt Stoller wrote in an exclusive piece for The New York Times, the bills “threaten the companies’ dominance and represent an opportunity for state leaders to put fairness in commerce at the center of governance.”
An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Washingtonian named Economic Liberties’ Executive Director Sarah Miller and Research Director Matt Stoller as two of Washington’s Most Influential People. In their profile of Miller, Washingtonian noted that “corporate concentration and monopoly power are now pressing economic issues” and that public support for federal interventions like cases against Facebook and Google “got a big boost from Miller.”
Growing Our Team: Brandi Collins-Dexter, a longtime leader for racial and economic justice at Color of Change, one of the architects behind the Facebook advertiser boycott, and now a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, is joining Economic Liberties’ Board of Directors. Elle Ekman, a Marine Corps Officer who has written extensively on right to repair restrictions, joins Economic Liberties as our new Senior National Security Fellow. J.D. Scholten, a former congressional candidate and advocate for economic justice for rural communities, is also joining Fight Corporate Monopolies and Economic Liberties as a Senior Advisor.
News from Around the Network:
Bombshell reporting from Politico’s Leah Nylen featured un-redacted and confidential FTC memos from the 2011-2013 Google antitrust investigations that exposed how Obama-era enforcers failed to stop Google from building one of the world’s most dangerous monopolies.
A new report from Liberation in a Generation’s Jeremie Greer and Solana Rice lays out the many reasons why antimonopoly activism can and must be a part of the fight for racial justice.
Exciting research from Public Citizen’s Jane Chung finds Facebook and Amazon are now corporate America's two biggest lobbying spenders, eclipsing Big Oil and Tobacco.
In a must-read feature that noted the influence of Matt Stoller’s book Goliath and Dave Dayen’s book Monopolized, The New Yorker’s Casey Cep illustrates how Amazon’s monopoly power is crushing independent bookstores across the country — and every other independent business that defines American downtowns.
For WIRED, Ron Knox, Senior Researcher & Writer at the Institute for Local Self Reliance, detailed how corporate power in streaming, recording, and ticketing devastated the music industry long before the COVID-19 pandemic.
EXTRA CREDIT:
Three members of our team publish specialty newsletters that make for required reading as corporate power becomes increasingly central to the national conversation. Sign up or explore the archives below!
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