Posted on 09/29/2016 6:32:30 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Lawmakers are venting outrage over high prescription drug costs, but if Congress is looking for culprits, it might want to look in the mirror.
Republican- and Democratic-controlled Congresses, and presidents of both parties, may have set the stage for the startling prices that have consumers on edge.
In the last 13 years, Congress passed major legislation that expanded taxpayer-financed coverage for prescription drugs but lacked explicit mechanisms for dealing with costs, instead relying mainly on market forces. [
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The history we see over and over again is that when the government steps in as a guaranteed payer without regard to price, it will be taken advantage of, said Dr. Peter Bach, director of Memorial Sloan Ketterings Center for Health Policy and Outcomes.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Government is responsible for all the ills.
How many members of congress have stock in pharmaceutical companies?
Follow the money.
Mylan had a government-enforced monopoly on the market, due to an over-zealous FDA effectively banning any competition that tried to enter the market. The USA has one supplier of injectible epinephrine. Europe has eight.
Mylan also smartly played the “isn’t anyone going to think of the children?!!” game, and convinced governments and school districts everywhere that THEIR epi-pens should be the ones used by school nurses and doctors around the the nation.
There was NO free-market for this product whatsoever, with predictable results.
You forgot to mention that Sen. Joe Manchin (Dem., VA) is the father of Mylan’s rip-off chief, Heather Bresch.
Pure genius.
Whenever legislation or a court decision is described as “landmark,” it’s almost always bad.
Is the pope catholic? No that might not work...
Does a bear shit in the woods?
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