What made me want to post on this topic was last month I got ticket shock when I picked up my meds and were told that it would be $536 for a month’s supply.
Then I started wondering what had happened to all those promises from Biden and his Dem cohorts…..what is going on these days with our drug prices?
There is a fight coming over the Medicare pricing reform….PhARMA is not happy and has gone to court….
A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit that the pharmaceutical industry’s powerful trade group and allied organizations filed in an attempt to kill Medicare’s new drug price negotiation program, which threatens manufacturers’ virtually unrestrained power to drive up the prices of lifesaving medicines.
Judge David Alan Ezra of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas tossed the lawsuit on procedural grounds, ruling that the National Infusion Center Association (NICA)—which does not manufacture or sell prescription drugs—lacked standing to sue.
Because NICA was the only plaintiff based in Texas, Ezra—a Reagan appointee—dismissed the lawsuit, which was joined by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and the Global Colon Cancer Association. The coalition argued that the Medicare price negotiation program is unconstitutional, a claim that advocates have dismissed as cover for the industry’s attempt to protect its profits.
A spokesperson for PhRMA, which spends tens of millions of dollars a year lobbying Congress, told Axios in a statement that the group is “disappointed” with the judge’s decision and is weighing its next legal steps.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/judge-tosses-pharma-lawsuit
At least one judge is on our side but I would not get too cocky….if it goes to SCOTUS it will screw us mere peasants for at least one spouse of a sitting judge is in the pocket of PhARMA.
Speaking of lobbyists….last year, 2022, PhARMA spent $374 million on buying support from Congress.
Then there is whopping bonuses the CEOs are raking in…..
Could any corporate execs walking our world today be any greedier than the execs who run Big Pharma? Hard to say. But out-grasping Big Pharma, suggests a new report out of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, would certainly require some serious greed.
Consider, for instance, the pay record of the Big Pharma colossus Johnson & Johnson.
Two years ago, Johnson & Johnson pocketed $17.9 billion in profits and rewarded its CEO with $27.6 million in compensation. That same year, overall, saw Johnson & Johnson lay out $17.8 billion on stock buybacks, dividends, and executive pay — and only $14.6 billion on R&D.
“In other words,” the Senate panel’s report noted, “the company spent $3.2 billion more enriching executives and stockholders than finding new cures.”
New Hope for a Check on CEO Compensation
Did you read that? PhARMA spent more on stock buy backs than it did on R&D….recovering R&D is one of the excuses for high prices.
Enough is enough!
Promises do not pay the bills….time to get serious about controlling drug prices or STFU and go home!
Pharmaceutical companies are angry with Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator has vowed to force pharma CEOs to publicly answer for why their drug prices are so much higher in the United States than in other nations.
Brazenly, the CEOs of Johnson & Johnson and Merck initially refused.
An attorney for Johnson & Johnson accused the senator of using Senate committee hearings to “punish the companies who have chosen to engage in constitutionally protected litigation.” The company, along with Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb, issuing the Biden administration for allowing Medicare to regulate certain prescription drug prices.
For the last two decades, it’s been a free-for-all for pharmaceutical companies in the U.S.
In 2003, then-President George W. Bush signed a Medicare reform bill into law, promising help for seniors struggling to pay for medications. But that law stripped the federal government of its power to negotiate drug prices for Medicare’s participants. And that’s driven drug prices up for everyone.
Drug Prices Should be Controlled
Will us peasants ever be the one thing on Congress’ collective mind? Or are we just a means to an end?
I believe the later is true.
How about you?
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
My drug price battle is with my hospital. You can’t bring your meds when you go in so they can charge you for the same meds you already have from the hospital pharmacy. One med they charge $20 each for two days and I purchase 90 days for the $40 . Medicare won’t pay because I already have 90 day supply. Then they charge $2 – $4 each for my vitamin pills which I did not need for just a two day stay. There’s more but that’s the grift in summary.
This thing is getting ridiculous and I am glad to see at least a few in DC are trying to stop this highway robbery of the American people. chuq
Yeah, a government beholden to the pharmaceutical industry probably ain’t going to make drugs cheaper?
They are fighting any reform….lots of cash being passed around to our corrupt politicians. chuq
That price for your drugs would translate to £5,000 a year here. That would be unsustainable for most ordinary people.
Best wishes, Pete.
Heck, 5,000 is next to nothing for a lot of people. I have a friend in another state who was hit with a bill for about $2,500/month for her arthritis medication. She has severe rheumatoid arthritis and this particular drug has been the only thing that’s allowed her to live a decent life. When she lost her job as a nurse she had to pay that out of her own pocket. We got some friends together to help her cover the cost until she was old enough to qualify for Medicare.
Yes, we are aware of the tremendous cost of medical treatment in America, Grouchy. That’s why most people in the UK, are fearful of the government here introducing Private Healthcare in this country, as they are desperately trying to do after receiving blatant bribes from companies in the US.
Best wishes, Pete.
I sort of keep an eye on what’s going on in the UK because I have some friends living there and I’ve been seeing what’s going on with the national health service with considerable concern. It looks like there is a concerted effort on the part of politicians to deliberately starve the NHS of the funding it needs to operate properly, causing massive problems, including delays in getting to see a doctor, overbooked hospitals, poor response times by ambulances, etc. Then trying to blame an “inefficient” NHS for all of the problems that the government itself is actually responsible for. Sooner or later they’re going to propose privatizing parts of the system, selling it off to for profit corporations, as a way of “improving” the system.
The same thing happened here with the Medicare Advantage program that was supposed to make Medicare access better and cheaper for the elderly. What really happened was the shifting of funding from doctors and health care, to insurance companies which skim off massive amounts of money from the system making access to care even more difficult and expensive.
Indeed….there are some meds that can cost over a $1000 a month for one script….this whole thing is getting out of control. chuq