High Drug Prices Are Killing Americans

[Crabtownboy]

All across the country, Americans are finding that the prices of the prescription drugs they need are soaring. Tragically, doctors tell us that many of their patients can no longer afford their medicine. As a result, some get sicker. Others die.

A new Kaiser Health poll shows that most Americans think prescription drug costs in this country are unreasonable, and that drug companies put profits before people. Want to know something? They're right.

Americans pay the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world -- by far. Drug costs increased 12.6 percent last year, more than double the rise in overall medical costs. (Inflation in this country was 0.8 percent that year.)

Even before that, we spent nearly 40 percent more per person on prescriptions in 2013 than they did in Canada, the next most expensive industrialized country. Prescription drugs cost nearly five times more per person in this country than they did in Denmark that year.

This is not a partisan issue. Most Americans -- Republicans, Democrats, and independents -- want Congress to do something about drug prices. 86 percent of those polled, including 82 percent of Republicans, think drug companies should be required to release information to the public on how they set their prices. Large majorities support other solutions to the drug cost problem as well.

The Kaiser poll also showed that Republican voters care more about drug prices than they do about repealing Obamacare. They should. Republicans in Congress have tried to repeal that law so many times that it's an embarrassment. It's also a distraction from the very real health care problems our country faces. Millions of Americans still can't see a doctor when they need one. Another poll showed that nearly one in five Americans didn't fill a prescription because of cost.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernie-sanders/high-drug-prices-are-kill_b_8059526.html

 

[JohnDeereFan]

I agree. We need to get government out of healthcare so that drug prices will come down to an affordable level.

 

[Crabtownboy]

I agree. We need to get government out of healthcare so that drug prices will come down to an affordable level.

The problem here in the States is the government in not involved in drug prices. Because the government is involved in Europe the drugs cost much less. Drug costs here will only go up because the government is not involved. It is called unregulated Capitalism and companies can charge whatever they want.

Indeed all healthcare costs are much lower in Europe because the governments there are involved. I have known of people who went to a European country for health care, paid a lot less and received excellent care.

However, because of lobbyists the drug industry was successful in blocking any Medicare payments anywhere outside the country. Of course this costs the tax payer much more, but rewards the big drug companies.

 

[JohnDeereFan]

The problem here in the States is the government in not involved in drug prices.

Actually, the government has numerous programs that drive up the cost of drugs.

Because the government is involved in Europe the drugs cost much less.

"Less" relative to what, exactly?

And if "less" is good, then wouldn't less-er be better?

Drug costs here will only go up because the government is not involved. It is called unregulated Capitalism and companies can charge whatever they want.

Actually, unregulated capitalism causes prices to go down because it promotes competition.

Indeed all healthcare costs are much lower in Europe because the governments there are involved.

Again, "lower" relative to what? And if "lower" is good, then why isn't more lower better?

I have known of people who went to a European country for health care, paid a lot less and received excellent care.

The good thing about the internet is that you can say you "know" all sorts of things. But in real life, the opposite is true. Europeans who have the money come here because they get better treatment and don't have to wait months to get potentially life saving treatment.

However, because of lobbyists the drug industry was successful in blocking any Medicare payments anywhere outside the country. Of course this costs the tax payer much more, but rewards the big drug companies.

How does it reward the drug companies?

Second, why are we paying Medicare payments for people outside the country?

Third, if lobbyists are bad, why not abolish the regulations that make lobbyists necessary?

 

[Revmitchell]

The problem here in the States is the government in not involved in drug prices. Because the government is involved in Europe the drugs cost much less. Drug costs here will only go up because the government is not involved. It is called unregulated Capitalism and companies can charge whatever they want.

Sorry, it is not possible to involve government and have it be cheaper. If you think the drug industry is unregulated you need to do better research.

 

[InTheLight]

Actually, unregulated capitalism causes prices to go down because it promotes competition.

You would think so but it doesn't work that way with many prescription drugs. What happens is a company develops a breakthrough drug, gets an airtight patent on it, gets FDA approval than charges an arm and a leg for it.



Sent from my Motorola Droid Turbo with Tapatalk Pro.

 

[JohnDeereFan]

You would think so but it doesn't work that way with many prescription drugs. What happens is a company develops a breakthrough drug, gets an airtight patent on it, gets FDA approval than charges an arm and a leg for it.

Yeah, I can understand why you would want that to be true, but that's not how capitalism works.

 

[InTheLight]

Yeah, I can understand why you would want that to be true, but that's not how capitalism works.

Precisely. Classic capitalism does not apply to drugs. Look up the unsubsidized price of Xeralto, or Advair, or Eliquis, or any number of the new drugs.

Sent from my Motorola Droid Turbo with Tapatalk Pro.

 

[church mouse guy]

Sorry, it is not possible to involve government and have it be cheaper. If you think the drug industry is unregulated you need to do better research.

Yeah, haven't they heard of FDR?

If you want good medical care, go to Cuba!

 

[JohnDeereFan]

Precisely. Classic capitalism does not apply to drugs. Look up the unsubsidized price of Xeralto

Yes. It's expensive. That's why capitalists came up with an identical, less expensive alternative called Rivaroxaban.

Once again, capitalism comes through, making an expensive drug available to people who could not otherwise afford it.

 

[InTheLight]

Once again you are in error. Rivaroxaban is the FDA registered name for this particular anticoagulant. Xaralto is the trademarked name. There is NO generic equivalent.

http://www.drugs.com/availability/generic-xarelto.html

Does every brand-name drug have a generic drug?

No. New drugs are developed under patent protection, and most drug patents are protected for 17 years giving the drug company the sole right to sell the brand-name drug during that time. Only when the patent expires can other drug companies apply to the FDA for approval to start selling the generic version of the drug.

http://www.drugs.com/generic_drugs.html

 

[carpro]

Once again you are in error. Rivaroxaban is the FDA registered name for this particular anticoagulant. Xaralto is the trademarked name. There is NO generic equivalent.

http://www.drugs.com/availability/generic-xarelto.html


http://www.drugs.com/generic_drugs.html

There are several other anticoagulants on the market.. Some are dirt cheap.

Also, Lawsuits alone will keep the price of xarelto high.

 

[JohnDeereFan]

Once again you are in error. Rivaroxaban is the FDA registered name for this particular anticoagulant. Xaralto is the trademarked name. There is NO generic equivalent.

http://www.drugs.com/availability/generic-xarelto.html

Does every brand-name drug have a generic drug?

No. New drugs are developed under patent protection, and most drug patents are protected for 17 years giving the drug company the sole right to sell the brand-name drug during that time. Only when the patent expires can other drug companies apply to the FDA for approval to start selling the generic version of the drug.

http://www.drugs.com/generic_drugs.html

I understand why you would want that to be true, but that isn't the way it works.

 

[InTheLight]

I understand why you would want that to be true, but that isn't the way it works.

Continually saying that will not make it true.

Drugs are patented. If the manufacturer decides not to license out the patent a generic version can only be produced after the patent expires in 17 years.

If this is not the way it works please tell us how it works.

Been inside a pharmacy lately? Typically there is a huge wall mounted chart showing when each drug's patent expires.

 

[InTheLight]

There are several other anticoagulants on the market.. Some are dirt cheap.

Yes, that's because they are generics, like Coumadin, which is a brand name for Warfarin. But if you need to take Warfarin you need to have blood tests every two weeks to monitor the effectiveness and to possibly adjust the dosage. Also there are foods that are forbidden to be eaten when taking Warfarin because they negate the action of the drug. Xaralto and Equilis have become popular because they don't have these restrictions.

Besides Warfarin please list the other generic anti-coagulants that are dirt cheap.

Also, Lawsuits alone will keep the price of xarelto high.

Sorry, but no, lawsuits alone do not keep the prices high. Yes, lawsuits are a factor but not the main factor. The main factor is the proprietary nature of the drug. It has many advantages over other anti-coagulants which makes the drug in demand. For example, one needs to take only one pill per day. There are no dietary restrictions. No need for constant monitoring of blood chemistry. No dosage adjustments. Less likelihood of intercranial bleeding.

 

[blessedwife318]

You would think so but it doesn't work that way with many prescription drugs. What happens is a company develops a breakthrough drug, gets an airtight patent on it, gets FDA approval than charges an arm and a leg for it.



Sent from my Motorola Droid Turbo with Tapatalk Pro.

Your argument for why we need government involved in pharmaceutical is to point out how high drug prices are thanks to two different government agencies, the patent office and the FDA?

I have long said drug prices are out of control but the government is part of the problem, and Obamcare just made it worse, so you'll forgive if I'm sceptical of government solving a problem it helped to create.

 

[Revmitchell]

Your argument for why we need government involved in pharmaceutical is to point out how high drug prices are thanks to two different government agencies, the patent office and the FDA?

I have long said drug prices are out of control but the government is part of the problem, and Obamcare just made it worse, so you'll forgive if I'm sceptical of government solving a problem it helped to create.

That is what government does. It regulates until it raises costs of products and services and then regulates again to force the manufacturers and businesses to just eat those costs as often as it can.

 

[InTheLight]

Your argument for why we need government involved in pharmaceutical is to point out how high drug prices are thanks to two different government agencies, the patent office and the FDA?

Please point out where I argued for government involvement in the pharmaceutical industry. I was merely stating facts. Drug prices are high because patenting them gives manufacturers a 17 year monopoly.

At no point did I suggest a government solution to high drug prices. However, I will say this - - I could support a shorter patent duration for drugs. A drug patent length of 10 years instead of 17 years would mean generics would get to market much faster. Unfortunately, this would likely mean that manufacturers would set prices even higher than they are now since they would only have 10 years to recoup R&D costs before the generics hit the market.

 

[Revmitchell]

There’s one factor that, as much as anything else, determines how many medicines are invented, what diseases they treat, and, to an extent, what price patients must pay for them: the cost of inventing and developing a new drug, a cost driven by the uncomfortable fact than 95% of the experimental medicines that are studied in humans fail to be both effective and safe.

A new analysis conducted at Forbes puts grim numbers on these costs. A company hoping to get a single drug to market can expect to have spent $350 million before the medicine is available for sale. In part because so many drugs fail, large pharmaceutical companies that are working on dozens of drug projects at once spend $5 billion per new medicine.

“This is crazy. For sure it’s not sustainable,” says Susan Desmond-Hellmann, the chancellor at UCSF and former head of development at industry legend Genentech, where she led the testing of cancer drugs like Herceptin and Avastin. “Increasingly, while no one knows quite what to do instead, any businessperson would look at this and say, ‘You can’t make a business off this. This is not a good investment.’ I say that knowing that this has been the engine of wonderful things.”


A 2012 article in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery says the number of drugs invented per billion dollars of R&D invested has been cut in half every nine years for half a century. Reversing this merciless trend has caught the attention of the U.S. government. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, in 2011 started a new National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences to remove the roadblocks that keep new drugs from reaching patients.

“One point your numbers tell you is how horrendous the failure rate is and how that causes the cost of success to be so much higher,” says Collins. “We would love to contribute to making that failure rate lower, to identifying those bottlenecks and to trying to reengineer the pipeline so if failures happen, they happen very early and not in later stages where the costs are higher.”

The good news is that a close look at the data we collected provides some hints as to how to improve the industry’s hit rate – and how individual companies, without lowering the overall cost of developing a drug, can at least reduce their own expenses. Some companies – like Bristol-Myers Squibb, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and Aegerion – do far better than their peers.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthew...-new-drugs-is-shaping-the-future-of-medicine/

 

[carpro]

Yes, that's because they are generics, like Coumadin, which is a brand name for Warfarin. But if you need to take Warfarin you need to have blood tests every two weeks to monitor the effectiveness and to possibly adjust the dosage. Also there are foods that are forbidden to be eaten when taking Warfarin because they negate the action of the drug. Xaralto and Equilis have become popular because they don't have these restrictions.

So , if someone wants the convenience of a new drug that is no more effective than an alternate drug, they need to pay the difference without complaint.

It's up to them.