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Health of Drug Company Profits Thrives at the Expense of Seniors |
George Kourpias, president of the Alliance for Retired Americans, a 3.4-million members grassroots advocacy organization for current and future retirees, describes the extent and effects of drug company price gouging, as found in a new Alliance for Retired Americans Educational Fund report. Kourpias is a former president of the Machinists
By now, the fact that drug companies are profiting at the expense of patients is probably not surprising.
What is shocking is the extreme extent of price gouging by pharmaceutical companies–and the direct effect it is having on retirees.
For millions of Americans, high drug prices are a major barrier to maintaining an acceptable quality of life. Outrageous Fortune: How the Drug Industry Profits from Pills, a new report for the Alliance for Retired Americans Educational Fund, shows that seniors are struggling more than ever to afford the medications they need.
The Educational Fund first explored how price gouging by the pharmaceutical industry allows profits to soar at the expense of every American and every U.S. company providing health benefits in 2001.
Outrageous Fortune shows that despite the books, news reports and personal stories exposing the pharmaceutical industry since that time, there have not been any improvements to prescription drug access, nor lowering of drug costs. Rather, drug companies continue to protect their profits.
Specifically:
Drug companies claim the high prices are necessary to fund ongoing research and development. Yet, many of the manufacturers’ development efforts are not for new drugs, but for copies of existing medications, to keep patents fresh and patient costs high by preventing generics from hitting the market.
Prescription drug spending in 2005 was $200.7 billion, five times the $40.3 billion spent in 1990. Yet, U.S. population growth between 1994 and 2005 was only 9 percent.
While drug costs skyrocketed, CEOs at the seven pharmaceutical companies with the highest revenues made over $142 million in 2005.
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The launch of a flawed Medicare prescription drug benefit has been a particular windfall for drug manufacturers, as higher and higher prescription prices and more stringent restrictions on generics are forcing retirees into the Part D “doughnut hole.”
For example, “Ed,” a Pennsylvania resident who participated in a recent Alliance study of the new Part D benefit, spent $1,948 on his six daily medications in the first half of 2006 alone, before being forced into the doughnut hole where he was responsible for the full price of his next $3,600 in medications on top of his monthly premiums.
Over the next year, seniors will hear a lot of discussion about prescription drugs and the proposed solutions to the health care problems in this country.
Ultimately, the best and most comprehensive approach to providing affordable prescription drugs for all Americans is to create a high-quality, affordable, universal health care system which provides comprehensive services and is based on the sound financial model of Medicare.
Outrageous Fortune can help both retirees and current workers make informed decisions about this important issue and the choices they face. It’s time our health came before the health of drug company profits.
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There is no reason in the world why prescription drug prices have to be so ridiculously high. There is also no reason in the world why drug companies should be allowed to make such enormous profits at the expense of everyone else. The only people who can afford to get sick are the ones who have an affordable prescription drug plan with their health coverage, considering that they do in fact have health coverage. That leaves poorer families and the elderly and disabled who are on fixed incomes out in the cold.
It is absolutely senseless that the federal government has entitled the pharmaceutical companies to the extent that only the wealthy will survive. This is why we need a universal health care system in this country. All citizens and legal inhabitants of this country should have free health care, and this care should be funded through our federal government budget, with the money coming from the funding of this insane invasion of Iraq, promoting nuclear proliferation by our own irresponsible governance, funding private security contractors (mercenaries) and other contractors who destroy other countries in the name of ‘freedom’, pork spending, and all other unnecessary spending, which as you and I know comes to hundreds of billions of dollars. It is sickening how messed up our country’s priorities are!!!!