Escalating Prescription Drug Prices

Two recent surveys of drug prices by consumer advocacy groups show a disturbing pattern of increases as the new Medicare drug benefit was getting under way. The surveys make it clear that health plans and individual consumers will need to be especially vigilant to keep spending on medications within reasonable bounds.

An analysis of 193 brand-name prescription drugs by AARP, which represents older Americans, found that their average wholesale prices increased 3.9 percent over the first three months of this year, almost four times the general inflation rate. Those increases will almost certainly drive up retail prices for consumers who pay out of pocket and will result in higher insurance premiums for many of those who have drug coverage.

Indeed, the second survey, by Families USA, a patient advocacy group, found that virtually all of the new private drug plans under Medicare raised their prices for frequently used medicines between mid-November 2005, when enrollment began, to mid-April 2006. For 19 of the top 20 drugs prescribed for older Americans, these changes were virtually identical, on average, to changes in the wholesale prices charged by manufacturers.

These price trends ought to put enormous pressure on Medicare drug plans to get the steepest possible discounts and rebates from the manufacturers when negotiating drug prices for the coming year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/opinion/26mon4.html?ex=1308974400&en=2f2c83bb3339c1bd&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Meanwhile, more and more seniors are choosing which of their prescriptions they will have filled because they can no longer afford all of them. This is criminal.


In a related story that I heard the other day on either cnn or msnbc, as the patent rights for major drugs come to term, big-pharmo will then begin to sell those drugs at 1/2 of the price of their generic substitute. The end result will be that small drug companies will not be able to compete, will be put out of business, and big-pharmo will have a monopoly and then be able to charge even higher prices for their drugs. :grr:


How anybody can cast a vote for any republican is beyond me.

was shocked to get his response.

He is apparently aware of the big pharmo problem is actually very liberal on this issue. He basically is calling for competition to be opened back up from Canada. I was shocked.

It was Senator Coburn from Oklahoma. I can try and find his actual response if you are interested. I may have purged it from my email though.

Scotty McClellan's brother said that it isn't true - that actually prices have come down on lots of drugs - just not the ones picked in the story.

Who does he think is going to believe that shit?

If there was ever a law that needs repealing, it's the new Medicare prescription drug plan, a plan that fleeces senior citizens at a time in their lives when they are on fixed incomes, and is a profit windfall to the big PHARMA companies whose lobbyists wrote it.

Here's Tom Coburn's stand on Prescription Drugs:


Prescription Drugs

As a practicing physician who regularly prescribes prescription drugs, I know first hand how the skyrocketing cost of pharmaceuticals is creating a hardship for people in Oklahoma, particularly among seniors on fixed incomes.

One step Congress can take to lower the cost of prescription drugs would be to allow Americans to purchase safe and affordable drugs from our trading partners. On average, Americans pay two to three times more for their prescriptions compared to consumers in other developed countries.

As a member of the House of Representatives I authored legislation that would have allowed the importation of prescription drugs from FDA-approved facilities in Canada and Mexico. Although this legislation was signed into law by the President, it has never been implemented. In the Senate, I will actively support similar legislation.

Congress can also reduce the cost of prescription drugs by speeding the entry of generic drugs into the marketplace and by limiting the expansion of the new universal entitlement in Medicare for prescription drugs. The federal government should target its assistance toward those who are truly needy, particularly low-income seniors. The federal government should not expand a misguided program that pays the drug bills of both millionaires and low-income Medicare beneficiaries, and, at the same time, asks those not on Medicare to subsidize those benefits by paying both higher taxes and higher prices for their drugs.

edit to add link:
http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Issues.View&Issue_id=04bcf696-ddf9-41b9-b11d-2cdc62a662d6&CFID=7356315&CFTOKEN=66450987


I can't believe I actually agree with that ignorant bastard on anything.