{"id":6552,"date":"2011-10-14T13:41:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-14T13:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pharma-mkting.com\/was-lillys-mmeds-twitter-cha\/"},"modified":"2019-02-21T01:20:37","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T01:20:37","slug":"was-lillys-mmeds-twitter-cha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/blog\/was-lillys-mmeds-twitter-cha\/","title":{"rendered":"Was Lilly&#8217;s #mmeds Twitter Chat a Discussion or a Press Conference?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, I participated in the #mmeds Twitter chat regarding Medicare hosted by Lilly (see &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/pharma-mkting.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/more-pharma-twitter-chats-medicare-is.html\">More Pharma Twitter Chats: Medicare is Topic<\/a>&#8220;). I had high hopes that this would be an informative <i>discussion<\/i>, but those hopes faded once the official &#8220;chat&#8221; began.<\/p>\n<p>Before the chat began, Lilly encouraged followers to ask questions: &#8220;Hope you can join @Modernmeds for a Twitter chat on #Medicare tomorrow at 4:00. Ask questions now via #mmeds&#8221; @Modernmeds is the Twitter account associated with The Campaign for Modern Medicines, which is sponsored by Eli Lilly and Company.<\/p>\n<p>The TOP TEN contributors (in terms of posts made) to the #mmeds chat were:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>&nbsp;@Modernmeds&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;@pharmaguy&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;@LillyPad&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;@WVRx&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;@HoosiersWFH&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;@PhRMA&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;@GHLForg&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;@mikecapaldi&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;@Outlandes&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>&nbsp;@patientaccess<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div>\nI am #2 primarily because I kept asking questions, many of which went unanswered, such as:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>What&#8217;s Lilly&#8217;s position viz-a-viz republican proposals to privatize Medicare or raise premiums for higher-income seniors?<\/li>\n<li>To reduce deficit, should gov&#8217;t raise the age of Medicare eligibility to 67 from 65?<\/li>\n<li>Who wants to &#8220;break&#8221; Medicare Part D and how exactly? Let&#8217;s go lite on the buzz words, pls. (posted in response to @Modernmeds tweet: &#8220;Medicare Part D is a government program that is not broken; let&#8217;s not break it.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>why does pharma think Part D is at risk of being &#8220;broken?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Can you summarize the &#8220;proposed changes&#8221; u are talking about please? (posted in response to @Modernmeds tweet: &#8220;The proposed changes would also cause higher Part D premiums for seniors.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Finally, @Lillypad got so disgusted, it tweeted &#8220;we understand that you may not agree with us&#8211; this is a discussion!&#8221; to which I replied &#8220;I haven&#8217;t disagreed with anything u hv said so far &#8211; none of my Qs have been addressed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/xmas_card_reasonably_small.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/xmas_card_reasonably_small.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>I wasn&#8217;t the only one to ask questions. Just before the official chat began, @ellsbelles3 posted this question: &#8220;I keep hearing that Medicare Part D is working and not to change it. what does that mean?&#8221; This sounded suspiciously like a setup from a phony ordinary citizen similar to &#8220;Joe the Plumber.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I immediately opened up&nbsp;@ellsbelles3&#8217;s Twitter profile and found that despite the fact that the account was opened up more than 6 months ago, this was&nbsp;@ellsbelles3&#8217;s FIRST and only tweet!<\/p>\n<p>I just had to ask her: &#8220;@ellsbelles3 C&#8217;mon&#8230; you&#8217;re a PhRMA agent, right? #mmeds&#8221;. No answer.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s @ellsbelles3 profile photo above (entitled &#8220;xmas_card_reasonably_small.jpg&#8221;). She&#8217;s located in Washington, DC. The vast majority of people that @ellsbelles3 follows on Twitter are politicians and media correspondents &#8212; exactly the types of people a public policy wonk like Amy O&#8217;Connor (aka, @Modernmeds and @LillyPad) would follow. In fact, Twitter says @aoconnorND (Amy O&#8217;Connor&#8217;s personal Twitter account) is an account with a very similar profile to @ellsbelles3. So, sorry, Amy. You don&#8217;t work for PhRMA (directly).<\/p>\n<p>During the chat @Modernmeds and @PhRMA pushed out talking points such as &#8220;Medicare Part D is a government program that is not broken; let&#8217;s not break it.&#8221;, &#8220;Medicare Part D works, has high satisfaction rates, and the select committee should avoid mirroring Medicaid&#8221;, &#8220;Recent #JAMA study found access to Part D saves $1200\/yr per senior in healthcare costs&#8221;, and &#8220;We are supportive of a market based system for Medicare Part D.&#8221; @LillyPad mostly RT&#8217;d these points.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, I figured out what Lilly et al were most concerned about: a proposal by lawmakers (democrats, I presume) to require pharma companies to offer &#8220;rebates&#8221; to help cover the out-of-pocket costs incurred by seniors who find themselves in Medicare Part D&#8217;s infamous &#8220;doughnut hole&#8221; (ie, where Medicare no longer pays for meds). The industry labels this proposal &#8220;price controls.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In the end, after 30 minutes, we all agreed that the discussion just began. I wish there was more discussion in the beginning rather than the very end. I tried my best, but it&#8217;s difficult when the chat organizers have an agenda and dominate the &#8220;discussion&#8221; with talking points, buzz phrases, and calls to action.<\/p>\n<p>Lilly et al obviously have a different view of what a Twitter chat should be than do I. To them it&#8217;s a press conference, not a conversation. Like a press conference, they can duck tough questions or just ignore inquisitive journalists (and bloggers) in the &#8220;audience.&#8221; In fact, that&#8217;s what I felt like during this chat: just another member of the &#8220;audience&#8221; who is expected to soak up and repeat talking points.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We will have a chat next Wed at 10 AM, with our President of Lilly USA, Dave Ricks,&#8221; said @Modernmeds at the end of yesterday&#8217;s chat. Unfortunately, Mr. Ricks won&#8217;t be using his own Twitter account (I don&#8217;t believe he has one), but will &#8220;he will be using @Modernmeds&#8217;s Twitter handle next week,&#8221; said @Modernmeds. Which leads me to question whether Dave Ricks will actually participate in the chat or if @Modernmeds (Amy O&#8217;Connor) will just play the part of Dave Ricks (ie, be his &#8220;mouthpiece&#8221; as they say in the PR world).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, I participated in the #mmeds Twitter chat regarding Medicare hosted by Lilly (see &#8220;More Pharma Twitter Chats: Medicare is Topic&#8220;). I had high hopes that this would be an informative discussion, but those hopes faded once the official &#8220;chat&#8221; began. Before the chat began, Lilly encouraged followers to ask questions: &#8220;Hope you can join [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[548,104,385,754,704,167,280],"topic":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Was Lilly&#039;s #mmeds Twitter Chat a Discussion or a Press Conference? - Pharma Marketing Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/ec2-54-175-84-28.compute-1.amazonaws.com\/pharma-mkting.com\/blog\/was-lillys-mmeds-twitter-cha\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Was Lilly&#039;s #mmeds Twitter Chat a Discussion or a Press Conference? - Pharma Marketing Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday, I participated in the #mmeds Twitter chat regarding Medicare hosted by Lilly (see &#8220;More Pharma Twitter Chats: Medicare is Topic&#8220;). 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