Even as drug makers promise to support Washington’s health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation’s drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years.
In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent, according to industry analysts. That will add more than $10 billion to the nation’s drug bill, which is on track to exceed $300 billion this year. By at least one analysis, it is the highest annual rate of inflation for drug prices since 1992.
The drug trend is distinctly at odds with the direction of the Consumer Price Index, which has fallen by 1.3 percent in the last year.
Drug makers say they have valid business reasons for the price increases. Critics say the industry is trying to establish a higher price base before Congress passes legislation that tries to curb drug spending in coming years.
The drug companies feel (and have a pill for) your pain. They just don’t want to share in it.
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Ooooooo I bet Pelosea, Reeeeeeeeed, and your supreme leader didn’t see this coming when he was spouting off about health care promised pre-election.
Whereas the REPUBLICANS do and understand these games.
Ya know just some food for thought. People keep jabbering on mindlessly and on about letting the free market do it’s thing. Well, when these companies get their patents extended. The free market isn’t allowed to take over.
Anyone who supports the Repubs is as mindless and moronic as the Dems.
Health insurance, too. Mine may go up by 30% next year.
You know the Credit Card companies did the same thing… they all doubled interest rates at the same time…. Just before the bill passed congress keeping them from doing it… Better yet, I’ve seen news stories on CNN applauding Discover Card for being the only one to not raise “your” rates in December like all the others will do… never mind they doubled them 6 months ago…
Oh so the CPI is going down? That means the retardlicans were demonstrably wrong about government spending causing inflation.
So since you guys were so completely and totally wrong about that, maybe you will now accept that you are wrong about the merits of single payer as well?
Naw, that is asking for too much from you. My earlier analysis that you guys are simply racist and that motivates your criticism was probably the correct one.
[Deleted for violation of blog guidelines. — ed.]
#6, Perhaps if the government hadn’t changed the way the CPI was calculated to get out having pay Cost of Living increases, it wouldn’t look that way.
Think about it — if the government can show the CPI is going DOWN, they don’t have to increase social security checks.
If the CPI were calculated the way it was a few years back, social security checks would be double what they are now.
Read up on HR 219 if you want to see some of this change.
The drug companies and their republican cronies are leveraging their special exemption from antitrust laws.
Can’t wait till Prez Obama shoves that hot Sherman antitrust law poker up their ass.
#2
Just wait until they have to increase taxes by 50% and cut spending by 25% to pay for all this government spending. That is when the infaltion will hit.
#10, Bingo.
So prices go up when they feel there is a big customer coming to buy who doesn’t care too much about price.
Colleges raised their tuition prices when the government started handing out more student aid, including a ten thousand dollar tax credit.
I can afford 6 of the 11 drugs I have been prescribed. When a drug reaches over $1 a day there is something very wrong with the drug being sold. Manufacturing, sourcing raw materials…something is wrong.
I have been prescribed 4 drugs that are >$150 a month and two in the $125 range. It would cost a bit over 50% of my unemployment for a month. That would be find if I did not have children to raise, a bit of hunger and the need to keep warm.
I am ready for a revolution. I am so tired of seeing America decay because of screwed-up politicians.
Armed to the teeth, trained by my government to kill and damn pissed. Someone spot me a target, quickly.
This is stressing me out. Has anyone got some xanax?
#18 The Monster’s Lawyer,
Sure, it will only cost $723.20 for 10 days worth.
Sparky, would you prefer it if the drug did not exist?
Comparing prices of drugs to the CPI isn’t as relevant as it appears anyway.
The marginal cost of producing a pill is extremely small. The reason why the drugs cost what they do is because the average total cost of a pill is high from the enormous costs for research, clinical trials, etc. that are incurred before a single one is sold. Just because the CPI declines today, doesn’t reduce the amount of money that was spent to develop a marketable drug.
There is no corporate oversight, and I’d wager that the writers of this dumb bill SUGGESTED (or were advised) to leave some loopholes like this.
I’d like to see the patent law rolled back to 1950’s standards, repeal the banking laws that allowed interstate banking, reinstate the usury laws, and mandate that all hospitals are not-for-profit entities. Let the government set up a series of clinics (free, or sliding scale) and get involved with medicine, and NOT give the Insurance Industry more power.
But, that would all make sense. It would me the elected representatives would have to be beholden to the US citizens who voted them in. So, maybe we should also make it mandatory that all representatives sign a contract that will bar them from taking any money from anyone, and must live on the salaries provided by the taxpayers — and, no windfalls within 8 years of leaving office, either.
So they raise the price and then cut the price and surprise! You have cost savings for the public while still charging as much as always if not more.
I believe the House Health System Exploitation bill has a feature that outlaws people buying cheaper drugs outside the states. It is also anti tort reform. You know you can count on Congress to protect the public unless they can get more money by selling it out.
The funny thing is, if you re-tuned or redesigned and an MRI machine, this one device could cure just
about ever ailment known to man..
You could also use it to stimulate the brain produce practically every drug sold on the market today.
Kinda similar to how electromagnetic pulse therapy works..
We and all life are beings of electromagnetic energy…every organism has its own unique electromagnetic signature.
Learn the frequency of the object in question, and you stimulate it to re-establish its “healthy” signature.
Other than profit, i think the main reason this is kept a secret is because you can also, very easily destroy (kill) any organism with the same technology.
The second reason is that anyone would be able to build such a device with basic electronic knowledge, (and most likely for under a $100) or very easily adapt a function generator
to do both, stimulate health, death or anything in-between.
You can rest assured that a device that costs under $100 to make that can cure almost anything, would never be allowed to “exist” in the current human mindset of today.
-however, i think that might all change within the next five years..
-s