Our country has so much potential and is such a fucking disgrace

Alex Azar, Trump’s HHS Pick, Has Already Been a Disaster for People With Diabetes

While he was at Eli Lilly, the company more than tripled the price of its best-selling insulin.

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Alec Raeshawn Smith, age 26, was found dead in his apartment on June 27. He was rationing his insulin after he aged out of his parent’s insurance coverage.

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Alex Azar was part of pharma-lobby group Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) until this year. When you ask pharma-lobby groups like BIO to explain why drugs cost so much, they’ll tell you “it’s complicated.”

In fact, it is simple. Drugs cost far too much. There are all sorts of ideas on how to bring prices down. Allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Let private citizens buy their drugs abroad. Mandate transparency on the dealings between drug companies, pharmacies, and middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers, as the State of Nevada did this year with SB539, a bill with bipartisan support.

We can expect Alex Azar to pursue none of these options. Looking at his track record, you can bet he will continue to back pharma-friendly approaches. Expect the Orwellian phrase “value-based pricing” to be commonplace. Since insulin literally keeps people alive, the Big 3 insulin producers have already tried to argue that value is a good reason to keep the prices high. The fact that insulin is almost 100 years old and costing pennies on the dollar to be produced means little when next quarter’s revenue is at stake.

https://www.thenation.com/article/alex-azar-trumps-hhs-pick-has-already-been-a-disaster-for-people-with-diabetes/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

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