Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was last seen sitting on her dragon inside King’s Landing. It was a moment of reflection. She could fly back to her home because her work was done, thusly letting CEO fuckbois live, or she could flame their asses up. Ocasio-Cortez then clicked her heels and got her fire-breathing monster back up in the air and burned all that shit to the ground.
On Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez took on a price-gouging CEO during a House hearing for pushing the price of a government patented drug designed to reduce the risk of HIV transmission to close to $2,000.
From The Hill:
“You’re the CEO of Gilead. Is it true that Gilead made $3 billion in profits from Truvada in 2018?” Ocasio-Cortez asked Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day.
“$3 billion in revenue,” he clarified.
“The current list price is $2,000 a month in the United States, correct?” she asked, referring to Truvada.
“It’s $1,780 in the United States,” O’Day responded.
“Why is it $8 in Australia?” Ocasio-Cortez countered.
“Truvada still has patent protection in the United States and in the rest of the world it is generic,” O’Day explained, adding, “It will be generically available in the United States as of September 2020.”
“I think it’s important here that we notice that we the public, we the people, developed this drug. We paid for this drug, we lead and developed all the patents to create Prep and then that patent has been privatized despite the fact that the patent is owned by the public, who refused to enforce it,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“There’s no reason this should be $2,000 a month. People are dying because of it and there’s no enforceable reason for it.”
You can watch the actual flaming take place below:
Ocasio-Cortez’s time expired before O’Day had a chance to answer but I’m sure he responded with noting how morally bankrupt and corrupt he’s been before adding that he was going to turn it all around and do better. He then, I imagine, walked out of the courtroom to a cheering crowd as he wiped a tear from his crusty eye; the back of his blazer was still smoking.