Posted on 09/25/2015 3:20:34 AM PDT by IBD editorial writer
"It is time to deal with skyrocketing out-of-pocket costs and runaway prescription drug prices." That was what Hillary Clinton said when she announced her plan to rein in prescription drug costs, which would, among other things, put a $250 monthly cap on out-of-pocket spending for prescription medications. (snip) But is there any truth to her claims?
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Vote for Hillary...she grows money trees all year long.
Hillary is a schill for the new world order. Her election starts the countdown clock for the nuclear annihilation of Israel.
The case is EXACTLY THE SAME as college costs,more subsidies from the government,colleges,oh boy more free money,raise TUITIONS!
obamacare caused the price of prescription drugs to increase.
She mixes them with bourbon?
We subsidize the rest of the world’s low drug prices. The drug companies gouge the U.S. to make up the difference.
She has a very bad history when it comes to meddling with Pharma type stuff.
Hillary’s Vaccine Shortage
By The Wall Street Journal
August 15, 2003
Everyone knows America’s vaccine industry is in serious trouble, with an ever dwindling number of producers and recent severe vaccine shortages. What everyone also should know is that the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine has now pinned much of the blame on Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Well, not in so many words. The panel of doctors and economists issuing a report on vaccines last week was too polite to mention the former First Lady by name. But they identify as a fundamental cause of the problem the fact that the government purchases 55% of the childhood vaccine market at forced discount prices. The result has been “declining financial incentives to develop and produce vaccines.”
The root of this government role goes back to August 1993, when Congress passed Mrs. Clinton’s Vaccines for Children program. A dream of Hillary’s friends at the Children’s Defense Fund, her vaccines plan was to use federal power to ensure universal immunization. So the government agreed to purchase a third of the national vaccine supply (the Clintons had pushed for 100%) at a forced discount of half price, then distribute it to doctors to deliver to the poor and the un- and under-insured.
The result is a cautionary tale for anyone who favors national health care. Already very high in 1993, childhood vaccination rates barely budged. A General Accounting Office report at the time noted that “vaccines are already free” for the truly needy through programs like Medicaid. Meanwhile, however, the Hillary project dealt the vaccine industry another financial body blow.
Thirty years ago, the Institute report notes, 25 companies produced vaccines for the U.S. market. Today only five remain, and a number of critical shots have only one producer. Recent years have brought shortages of numerous vaccines, including those for whooping cough, diphtheria and chicken pox.
The Institute of Medicine panel seems to assume — probably correctly — that it’s not politically feasible simply to kill something called Vaccines for Children. But it does suggest that removing the government as a direct purchaser would allow for adequate reimbursement and help the industry to get back on its feet. So it recommends replacing existing vaccination programs with a subsidized insurance mandate for children and seniors, and with vouchers for those who lack coverage.
In the short run, this might marginally improve on the existing system. But insurers rightly worry that future budget pressures would cause the subsidy to dry up, leaving them with yet another costly coverage mandate. An even greater risk is that it would put the government in position to determine which vaccines to subsidize, and to determine the subsidy level based on nebulous estimates of “the societal value of the vaccine.” This seems like an indirect price control, and we can’t think of any other industry in which a government policy of picking winners has been conducive to innovation.
The better answer is a return to a freer market. Private companies are willing to innovate if they can get an adequate return. Vaccines are a predictable cost, not a variable insurable risk, and so are affordable for even the poorest Americans. Jack Calfee of the American Enterprise Institute estimates that vaccines account for less than 2% of the pharmaceutical market or less than two-tenths of one percent of total U.S. health costs. The $400-$600 cost of the recommended round of childhood vaccines is spread out over 16 years, and the truly needy qualify for Medicaid or the federally funded State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Apart from price controls, the other great threat to vaccine makers has been tort lawyers. Congress took a significant step to solve this problem in 1986, creating the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, and requiring the injured parties to seek redress there before they can sue in regular courts. But plaintiffs’ lawyers have been crafty in finding ways around the VICP, most notoriously by claiming damages due to the discontinued but harmless vaccine additive thimerosal. There’s still work to be done here.
The Institute of Medicine panel deserves credit for highlighting the threat to vaccine makers from government price controls. Mrs. Clinton is a powerful Senator now with Presidential ambitions. It took some guts for the Institute panel to say in effect that one of her pet projects is a bust. As Congress considers Medicare legislation that could do similar harm to prescription drug makers, the vaccine tale is a timely alarm.
Price controls are always a lousy idea. Enabling market competition in the prescription drug market... there’s an idea that will fly.
“...put a $250 monthly cap on out-of-pocket spending for prescription medications.”
Yep! That’s a great idea. However it’s a “bait and switch” typical liberal idea. Why? Because we will all pay dearly by a huge increase in our income taxes to pay the balance of what was not paid.
Don’t believe it? Take 2 buckets of water, fill them to the same level, place a hose full of water between them and lift one bucket higher than the other.
Water in the higher bucket will lower ($250.00) and the water in the lower bucket will rise (the poor screwed taxpayer’s taxes). The same principle applies TO ALL GOVERNMENT SPENDING....PERIOD!
> obamacare caused the price of prescription drugs to increase.
At church Weds night a friend of mine told me that he went to the pharmacy to pivkup some medication that was recently prescribed for his son. The cost under his Obamacare plan - $1,600 for a 30 day supply!! He looked around abd found another pharmacy not mentioning his insurance plan - $218 a month. HUGE difference! I have a friend who works or a pharmaceutical company. He tells me the Americqn pulic is being gouged big time because the majority of the prescriptions they produce rarely ever cost more than $20 even with the legal fees taken into account. I asked why they charge so much and hw said, “because they can”; people have to have them to stay alive in many instances and they have a huge lobbyting machine to ensure thwy can keep them jacked up. Someone is lining their pockets and getting mega wealthy.
I want to see the chart from 2008 forward...
That is not quite true. The pharmaceutical indistry has to go through 10 years of testing AFTER years of research and development in the pursuit of safe and reliable medicines to treat all sorts of ailments and injuries. Consider cancer meds and all of the R&D that goes into searching for treatment (let alone cures). This stuff ain't cheap. Pharm companies have to front millions before the first potential for any ROI. Then they get accused by the gentry that they are gouging.
Enabling??? There has been competition in the prescription drug market forever. It's called generic drugs. The real cost of drugs comes from the FDA requirements that cost an average of 2.5 billion dollars for every new drug approved for sale. That's billion, with a B. If you want to really reduce drug costs, that's where to start.
I was astonished at how much steroidal medications have risen in price.
A 60 dollar skin cream is now upwards of 200 dollars.
Well,I’m blaming the FDA for a lot of that cost. When it take close to a half billion for a drug to come to market, mainly because of all the testing the FDA requires, then naturally, the Pharma will need to charge more. Yes, Big Pharma is raking in a lot, but FDA is partly to blame.
and that's one of the lower cost prescriptions compared to others. Not only have prescriptions gone up but everything else except for the price of gas which Obama had nothing to do with though he'll claim it if you let him.
its all a big racket. And you wonder why the government claims it never has enough money when you look at all the fees, penalties, and taxes they collect. They would have far more than they need if they would stop inviting people over to bankrupt our system.
Yeah? Try going to Europe, buying a couple of KG of, say, Zoloft tabs, and importing them back to the US for retail sale. Won't happen.
I'm with you on the cost of FDA regulation, however. I live in that world, and it's amazing how much money gets spent to meet compliance requirements even by companies that make generics.
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