High Drug Prices Are Killing Americans

[righteousdude2]

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

As a member of Kaiser HMO, which I've been since 1974, I too have concerns regarding the steady increase in copays for my Rx's. I can no longer afford the copays, and have had to cease getting several meds (asthma meds) refilled. It is a matter of paying the mortgage, buying food and healthcare. I can't even afford to drive 90 mile round trips for appointments. So, yes there are problems, and they all go back to Kaisers implementation of Obamacare. Even Kaiser blames Obamacare. Your man.

 

[JohnDeereFan]

Been inside a pharmacy lately?

You mean other than the Happy Harry's/Walgreen's I managed for three years?

 

[InTheLight]

You mean other than the Happy Harry's/Walgreen's I managed for three years?

Any pharmacy will do. And please tell us how the drug patenting and release of generics scenario that I outlined is incorrect. Also, the generic version of Xaralto.

 

[InTheLight]

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.

Agreed. I've never said otherwise.

What CTB said in the OP is true--there are new drugs that could prolong the lives of patients and could alleviate debilitating symptoms of patients that are not being taken by people because they can't afford them. The question is what, if anything, to do about it.

 

[carpro]

Agreed. I've never said otherwise.

What CTB said in the OP is true--there are new drugs that could prolong the lives of patients and could alleviate debilitating symptoms of patients that are not being taken by people because they can't afford them. The question is what, if anything, to do about it.

Kill the monetary incentive for creating new drugs and they will stop being created.

I don't see the government doing anything but making it worse.

 

[InTheLight]

Kill the monetary incentive for creating new drugs and they will stop being created.

This is true under classic capitalism.

I don't see the government doing anything but making it worse.

Agreed. The likely scenario is that there will be a call for government subsidized or perhaps government owned and run laboratories to research new drugs. It's likely that some sort of cost effective criteria will become part of the FDA approval process, like it is in Europe. This could lead to a worse situation than today--life saving drugs developed by the government but deemed too expensive to distribute.

 

[Rolfe]

You mean other than the Happy Harry's/Walgreen's I managed for three years?

Happy Harry's. Good name for a pharmacy. :laugh::laugh: