Posted on 05/14/2018 6:05:40 PM PDT by spintreebob
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20180511/NEWS/180519968
https://www.statnews.com/2018/05/11/trump-drug-pricing-speech/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-denounces-middlemen-and-largely-spares-pharma-in-drug-pricing-speech/
http://www.bipc.com/trump-condemns-middlemen-in-drug-pricing-speech-modern-healthcare
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-health-202/2018/05/14/the-health-202-health-industry-appears-unfazed-by-trump-s-drug-pricing-speech/5af4ac5530fb042588799464/
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/health-plans/eliminating-middlemen-trump-takes-aim-pbms-drug-pricing-speech
http://www.bipc.com/trump-condemns-middlemen-in-drug-pricing-speech-modern-healthcare
1. They all feature Trump flip-flop. They never mention that it is precisely Obamacare which was written by pharma lobbyists and dismantling Obamacare is dismantling favoritism for big Pharma.
2. More importantly, all media miss the real reform that is needed. Half of prescription drugs should not be prescription drugs. We first have to pay a doctor to write a prescription. Our insurance company then writes another payment to the doctor. Then we and the insurance make a second payment to the pharmacist. Included in that is the costs of the middlemen. But the pharmacist himself is a middleman.
We should be paying a stockboy to stock the shelves for over-the-counter sales of half of all drugs that currently require a prescription.
The media does not even mention the greatest opportunity to reduce drug costs.
All of what you have said is very true. Trying to turn “big pharma” into the enemy/target is a waste of time in dealing with the real problem, which is actually not the cost of common drugs but the elaborate insurance stuff that goes on around them in order to get reimbursement. Every time I get a prescription - which is pretty rare, and it’s always for something common, like an antibiotic or decongestant - I receive a mass of paperwork from my insurer. I can’t even get it electronically and have to open this huge envelope that includes a chaos of disclaimers. Bureaucracy has probably inflated the cost of that medication at least 2 or 3 times.
It costs drug companies a lot to develop a drug, and some drugs will be expensive. They have to be. So don’t try to get the companies to charge less (since they already don’t charge a lot for the most useful things) but figure out how to pay for them in a way that keeps the new drug pipeline funded and open. And fund more research so that even rarer diseases can get treatment, since learning about those benefits all of us. But the companies can’t do it without the bucks.
The ceo’s make $50 million and denied coverage for people.
The whole capitalist system is full of “middlemen”. Big government is also full of “middlemen”. Not sure where that is going.
Whatever they do I hope they don’t squash the incentives for research and development of new drugs which is a risky enterprise and has to be paid for somehow.
FMCDH(BITS)
5/14/2018, 7:05:40 PM · by spintreebob · 3 replies Modern Healthcare and many others ^ | 5-14-18 | Many http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20180511/NEWS/180519968 https://www.statnews.com/2018/05/11/trump-drug-pricing-speech/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-denounces-middlemen-and-largely-spares-pharma-in-drug-pricing-speech/ http://www.bipc.com/trump-condemns-middlemen-in-drug-pricing-speech-modern-healthcare https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-health-202/2018/05/14/the-health-202-health-industry-appears-unfazed-by-trump-s-drug-pricing-speech/5af4ac5530fb042588799464/ http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/health-plans/eliminating-middlemen-trump-takes-aim-pbms-drug-pricing-speech http://www.bipc.com/trump-condemns-middlemen-in-drug-pricing-speech-modern-healthcare
Having been finally priced out of my Health Insurance (50% of my income just wasn’t doable) I was faced with paying for my own prescriptions again. I have 3 that I simply have to take.
A friend turned me on to “GoodRX”
A free ap you can put on your phone, that provides discounts on meds. They give you the discounted price from all the providers in your area.
CVS was going to charge me more for a cash purchase than what it was costing me while still meeting my deductible.
2 of the 3 were going to cost me $160/mo combined.
With the GoodRX download, it cost me a total of $38 for 3 months worth at Krogers.
The 3rd was going to cost me $399/mo.... with discount, $155 at Meiers
Whole lot of price mark-upping goin’ on.
Sure but distribution in the pharma industry is exceptionally concentrated - 90% of all drugs are supplied by either AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson.
And that’s just the top tier of distribution.
wife uses a drug that costs $480 per month in the U.S. or
$480 for 3 months from canadadrug. Now after mid July we
are told canadadrug will no longer be able to sell to the U.S. market. sigh, what to do.
Side Affects include....
OK. Not sure how that is necessarily bad. Someone has to distribute the products. Not sure what big government is going to do -- micromanage the distribution network?
Bkmrk.
Sure but distribution in the pharma industry is exceptionally concentrated - 90% of all drugs are supplied by either AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson.
And that’s just the top tier of distribution.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MCK/financials?p=MCK
The big margins are with the successful drug manufacturers, but without those margins, they’d have no money to conduct new drug research. Pfizer makes over 15% of sales in profits, but that’s how it has money to spend on research without selling new shares every few years:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PFE/financials?p=PFE
They are giving a discount to foreign countries and milking the US taxpayer.
It seems when I have the media on, every other commercial is for a drug. Cash cows for the media.
I agree... why should drug purchasers the USA have to pay so much more for a given drug than drug purchasers in other developed countries???
It is driven by lobbyists and political contributions.
The biggest scam in the Pharma business is the evergreening of their drugs. When it gets close to the patent expiring, the companies “improve the product” by making a small, but unimportant changes to get the patent renewed; and of course, always raising the price.
We just discovered my wife has stage 4 cancer. One of the drugs they are telling us about is over $11k for a month’s supply of 21 capsules. Our HMO plan doesn’t cover it.
Pfizer, palbociclib.
“The racket behind Pfizer’s new $9,850 breast cancer drug”
http://www.citypages.com/news/the-racket-behind-pfizers-new-9850-breast-cancer-drug-7891854
Many of the older cheaper drugs work just fine, and usually have a lot less side effects. 1 thing I see that is most common in the newer drugs besides the Higher prices is the GI issues. Which then need another drug to treat that.
OA drugs ruined my Gastro Tract and cause a heart condition, and when the Cardio tried to find a Hypertension med, couldn’t find 1 that didn’t hit the GI tract worse than the OA drugs did.
We just discovered my wife has stage 4 cancer. One of the drugs they are telling us about is over $11k for a month’s supply of 21 capsules. Our HMO plan doesn’t cover it.
Pfizer, palbociclib.
The undiscounted UK price is far lower, at about £3K, which is less than $5K. A big part of lower foreign prices may have to do with the fact that single payer health care leaves a smaller and much more price-sensitive market for out of coverage customers. Britain’s NHS covers the drug, but with what seems to be a long list of conditions. If you’re planning to use Pfizer’s drug, it may pay to check if you can purchase it from the UK or Canada.
The two instances are not relevantly related
They are apples and watermelons
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