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For over a decade, prescription drug prices have soared with no end in sight. Price hikes have forced 1 in 10 Americans to ration their prescription drugs. This dangerous practice has taken the lives of at least 10 Americans—many of them never saw their 30th birthday. Some parents found second jobs to pay for their children’s prescription drugs and others dived deep into debt to cover their drug bills.  Unlike with other industries and companies, consumers can’t boycott the pharmaceutical giants or opt for affordable generic drugs because, in many cases, there aren’t any generics available. The largest pharmaceuticals have cornered...

President Donald J. Trump applauds the work of Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Wyden to lower prescription drug costs and further improve their bipartisan legislation, such as adding a provision to limit monthly out-of-pocket spending for seniors with chronic high costs. No President has done more to lower the cost of prescription drugs than President Trump, and this Bill would be another huge step forward for American families – for their health, their peace of mind, and their financial security. The White House calls on Congress to act now to give Americans the relief they need by sending bipartisan drug...

While the media continues to claim prescription drug prices are rising, a recent Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) paper shows the opposite: Under President Trump, prescription drug prices are decreasing at rates not seen since the 1960s. In the eight years prior to President Trump’s inauguration, prescription drug prices increased by an average of 3.6 percent per year. Fast forward to today, and prescription drug prices have seen year-over-year declines in nine of the last ten months, with a 1.1 percent drop as of the most recent month. In June 2019, the United States saw the largest single-year drop (2.0...

Maisy was having a severe reaction to her allergies this season and was having difficulty breathing. We called her doctor and he recommended we bring her in to the office. After the examination and a shot that gave her some relief, we went to the front desk, where the doctor wrote a prescription that was immediately filled by his staff at that moment. We paid for the prescription and went home to start her course of medication. Maisy is a 5 year old boxer that lives in Texas, and her veterinarian is allowed by Texas law to dispense prescription drugs...

President Trump recently promised that "America will never be a socialist country" -- at least not while he's in office. But some members of his administration didn't get the memo. The Department of Health and Human Services still plans to impose socialist, European-style price controls on advanced drugs administered through Medicare. The proposal would tie Medicare's drug reimbursement rates to the average prices paid by governments that impose price controls on medicines. HHS officials hope their scheme will reduce pharmaceutical spending here in America -- and force other developed nations to foot more of the bill for drug research and...

By almost any measure, the drug companies are the most profitable in the world. The “back up the truck” compensation paid to their executives reflect that. They are among the world’s largest advertisers and political donors as well. They hide behind white lab coats. They parade around under the banner of curing diseases for the benefit of all mankind. They conveniently ignore how much of their research is underwritten by Americans through their donations and taxes. They then charge those same Americans multiples more than they charge people in the rest of the industrialized world. Drug companies only pretend to be...

Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar has released a list of 100-plus executive orders she says she’d sign in her first 100 days in office. The orders include rejoining the Paris climate agreement and allowing prescription drugs to be imported from Canada. The list is intended to give voters an idea of what the first days in a Klobuchar White House would look like. …

After President Trump’s State of the Union Address, there seems to have emerged one common thread that is uniting the two parties. Both agree that the cost of prescription drugs is far too high in the United States. Trump mentioned it in his speech, and the theme has been invoked in countless post-speech interviews by elected Democrats. America spends far more per capita on healthcare than other developed nations, and yet drug prices here dwarf those in other countries. In one analysis carried out by Reuters, researchers found that top-selling drugs in the U.S. cost roughly triple what their counterparts...

Suppose that decades ago, a group of Oklahoma oil men came to Minnesota with an interesting proposal. They had an abundance of a very clean burning fuel they called natural gas. Minnesotans were using mostly coal and firewood to survive the harsh Minnesota winters. That meant that they had to stoke those fires regularly. It also meant billowing smoke, especially during those bone chilling cold snaps. Keeping warm was a pretty dirty business back then. Now suppose that the slow talking Oklahomans had a better idea. They wanted to build pipelines, storage facilities and a complete distribution system so that...

Another tragic mass shooting has taken place and, as usual, both sides are using it to further their political agenda. As the left blames guns and the right blames mental illness, both sides are completely missing the elephant in the room. If Ian David Long was diagnosed with PTSD, as reported, he was likely prescribed a slew of medications from the VA which have been tied to most every mass shooting in recent history. According to his neighbors and family, Long suffered from PTSD. While those who suffer from PTSD can have a myriad of horrific symptoms, homicidal ideation is...

Before entering public service at the federal level, I spent most of my life serving my community in a different way. As a pharmacist for more than 30 years, I saw firsthand the impact that prescription drug prices have on everyday citizens and families. As a result of research and development I have seen improvements in medications that save lives. Illnesses that were once a death sentence are now treatable with a prescription. While this is nothing short of a miracle, these advances are worthless if they are not affordable. I have seen elderly couples forced to choose between their...

LAS VEGAS — Authorities in Nevada say Art Bell, a syndicated radio host best known for nightly shows in the 1990s about paranormal themes and conspiracy theories, died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. Nye County Sheriff Sharon Wehrly posted a brief Facebook announcement on Wednesday saying an autopsy determined the 72-year-old Bell died of "multiple drug intoxication from his own lawfully prescribed prescriptions." Coroner John Fudenberg in Las Vegas says Bell had the painkillers..

I understand that some Congressmen (by that I mean men and women, I’m unaware of any other “genders” currently serving but if there are, it includes them too) are offering jobs to Andrew McCabe in order to allow him to earn his federal pension. Would have been nice if they’d been similarly concerned about ordinary Americans who lost their jobs, and pensions, during the 8 year Obama occupation.I wish they’d just get back to tending to Global Warming, so the Rothschilds don’t end up running the world – and the weather.But what’s really not what’s bothering me today; number one...

UnitedHealth Group has been sued by three customers who accused the largest U.S. health insurer of charging co-payments for prescription drugs that were higher than their actual cost and pocketing the difference. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Minnesota by three UnitedHealth customers, seeks to represent a nationwide class that it says could include "tens of thousands" of people insured by UnitedHealth. The lawsuit said Minnesota-based UnitedHealth and affiliated companies charged customers co-payments for drugs that were significantly higher than prices it negotiated with pharmacies for those drugs. For example, the lawsuit claims, one class member paid a...

Deaths in the U.S. due to prescription drug overdose are reaching crisis proportions. The increase in the death rate due to all prescription drugs has been primarily due to the increase in prescription opioid pain medications. State governments are looking for a solution to the problem. Historically, it has been very easy for people to obtain opioid prescriptions from multiple doctors; therefore, an obvious solution is to monitor who is receiving all opioid prescriptions. States enacted Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMP) which record who is filling opioid prescription medications at every pharmacy in the state. The information goes into a...

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. […] “The history we see over and over again is that when the government steps in as a guaranteed payer without regard to...

Calling the rising cost of drugs "unsustainable," congressional advisers on Wednesday recommended major changes to Medicare's popular outpatient prescription program, now 10 years old. The proposal from the nonpartisan Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, or MedPAC, steers clear of calling for the government to negotiate drug prices directly, an option both presidential candidates advocate. For beneficiaries, the plan is a mixed bag. All seniors would get better protection from extremely high costs, but some may have to spend more. The recommendations are unlikely to gain traction in Congress during an election year, but they will get a serious look from staff...

"Muslims account for only about 1 percent of the U.S. population but account for about half of terrorist attacks since 9/11. That means Muslims in the United States are about 5,000 percent more likely to commit terrorist attacks than non-Muslims." -- Mark Krikorian2) "Consider, for example, that in 1958 a mere 4 percent of Americans approved of interracial marriage. By 2013, that number had grown to 87 percent. In 2012 these once-taboo unions hit an all-time high.Ku Klux Klan membership has shrunk drastically from millions a century ago to fewer than 5,000 today. The Black Panthers are essentially extinct. While plenty...

We won’t bury the lede. “National Health Spending In 2014: Faster Growth Driven By Coverage Expansion And Prescription Drug Spending.” That’s the title of an article from the January, 2016 print version of Health Affairs, published online December 2nd. Here are a few key findings… 1. US healthcare spending increased 5.3 percent to $3.0 trillion in 2014. That represents 17.5 percent of the gross domestic product. 2. The 2013 growth in spending figure was 2.9 percent. 2014’s higher growth in spending rate is due mostly to the major coverage expansions under the Affordable Care Act, particularly for Medicaid and private...

I fear the media will never get it right about supplements. Why is it impossible for investigative media reporters to get it right about health supplements? In March of 2013 medical research showed that every day 290 North Americans die from prescription drugs. To kill the same number of people a jumbo jet plane would have to crash every day. I asked Health Canada’s forensic bureaucrats to explain where the dead bodies are who took natural supplements? I have never had a reply. Now the media are using a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and...