THE past year has brought a steady infusion of grim news about the price of drugs. Much outrage has been caused by a price-gouging scheme for an AIDS medicine. Other scandals have included the cost of the allergy medicine EpiPen, the excessive cost of insulin, an expensive cure for Hepatitis C and enormous price increases in the cost of two heart drugs. New data on federal spending on programmes for the poor and the elderly show that last year $9.2bn was spent on a single medicine—Harvoni, which cures Hepatitis C. More such tales can be expected from the ongoing antitrust investigation by the Department of Justice into possible price fixing in generic drugs.
It is little wonder, then, that a new survey by Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Polls says 77% of people think drug costs are unreasonable (a five percenntage-point increase on the previous year). Ron Cohen, boss of Acorda Therapeutics, a drug firm, and chairman of BIO, a trade group, says the sense of outrage among patients is “understandable”. Ever since the Affordable Care Act changed the way the health-insurance industry was regulated, many...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2hazClb
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