The Chickens are Coming Home to Roost
Published by Bob Foster
You don’t really understand what Washington is doing until it hits you smack in the face—like this: A few days ago, we went to the Pharmacy to refill a prescription and discovered the price had increased 210% over the past 90 days. The explanation by the pharmacist for the big price increase was that the Big Pharma companies are all in the process of raising their prices with lightning speed.
Then I ran across an article put out by the Associated Press on March 29th, titled, “Big Pharma Wins Big With Health Care Reform Bill.” This article was picked up by several of the larger blogs, but here are a few excerpts from the AP article:
“Pharma came out of this better than anyone else,” said Ramsey Baghdadi, a Washington health policy analyst who projects a $30 billion, 10-year net gain for the industry. “I don’t see how they could have done much better.”
“Chalk one up for the pharmaceutical lobby. The U.S. drug industry fended off price curbs and other hefty restrictions in President Barack Obama’s health care law even as it prepares for plenty of new business when an estimated 32 million uninsured Americans gain health coverage.”
“Costly brand-name biotech drugs won 12 years of protection against cheaper generic competitors, a boon for products that comprise 15 percent of pharmaceutical sales.”
“Lobbyists beat back proposals to allow importation of low-cost medicines and to have Medicare negotiate drug prices with companies.”
“Pharmaceutical interests spent $188 million lobbying last year, more than all but a handful of industry sectors…They employed an army of 1,105 lobbyists.”
To read the entire article, check here
This is just a small sample of the mighty healthcare reform law…so, Small Business—”gird up your loins,” because the insurance man cometh, and he is bringing the “high sheriff” of Washington law with him.
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2 Responses to “The Chickens are Coming Home to Roost”
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This may backfire against them in the end. More and more people are going with generics because of cost. HMOs insist that you take the generic over the name-brand unless you want to pay the difference out of pocket.
The unfortunate issue with generics is that unlike other industries (such as food and sundries) the generics aren’t merely cheaper mixes and formulas of their name-brand counterpart, but primarily drugs designated for another purpose but who’s side-effects happen to to also cover the spectrum of other ailments.
I guess no matter how you look at it, we’re going to be the ones paying dearly in the end.
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Jeff – Thanks for the comment. If you notice in the AP article, the Pharma companies have addressed the generic issue by outlawing the manufacture of generics of their most expensive drugs. Their position is that they need to recoup their development costs. The prescription I mentioned in my post has a generic counterpart, but it can only be purchased in India. That means it’s manufacture is not overseen by any government watchdog agency, so a person cannot be sure exactly what they are getting.
You are also right about most generics—they are usually drugs developed for some other purpose and simply cross-purposed because of beneficial(?) side-effects.
We all know that big corporations control Congress and the Administration–that’s just the way it works. Now, we also know that Big Pharma had a heavy hand in determining how the Healthcare reform law was written. That doesn’t leave much room for influence by individuals or small business. Yup, we will all pay dearly in the end.