SAND DIAL wrote:
To say 'hike' is putting it mildly,

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/ex-hedg … /comments/

I followed the link. That page loads slower than Huffington Post with all of its ads.

I saw the story on CNN last night. Dick heads like that guy are why the U.S. needs single payer health care like the rest of the civilized world.

Roy Hubbard wrote:
I don't remember specifics, but a few years ago a pharmaceutical firm was granted the exclusive right to manufacture and distribute a medication I was taking at the time. The price went from $7 a bottle up to $450 a bottle overnight, and there was a period where I needed to foot the difference out of pocket because my insurance wouldn't cover it.

The first thing I would want to know is why such price hikes are necessary.  A change from $7 to $450 really has the appearance of greed. 

I read something a few years ago about how the pharmaceutical companies have evolved over the last few decades.  Originally, the companies were controlled by the medical people who did the first research and created the early products that began that company.  Over the years, the medical people have been replaced in management by business people (pencil pushers, number crunchers) who worry more about wealth than the original mission of healthcare.  The wellbeing of the people who depend on their products is lost to them.  Their product becomes just another commodity on the market.

ernst tischler wrote:

The first thing I would want to know is why such price hikes are necessary.  A change from $7 to $450 really has the appearance of greed. 

I read something a few years ago about how the pharmaceutical companies have evolved over the last few decades.  Originally, the companies were controlled by the medical people who did the first research and created the early products that began that company.  Over the years, the medical people have been replaced in management by business people (pencil pushers, number crunchers) who worry more about wealth than the original mission of healthcare.  The wellbeing of the people who depend on their products is lost to them.  Their product becomes just another commodity on the market.

The Drug Companies make more of a profit than the oil companies in our country. I have known some employees of  drug companies out of New Jersey and the money they make is really unbelievable. Their profits are huge and so is their greed!....the whole thing is sad!

Images By Cynthia wrote:
The Drug Companies make more of a profit than the oil companies in our country. I have known some employees of  drug companies out of New Jersey and the money they make is really unbelievable. Their profits are huge and so is their greed!....the whole thing is sad!

It is interesting to me how some drugs can be so expensive, yet I pay Wal-Mart less than $50 a year total for the two drugs I take...and that is the cash price.  If I used my insurance, I would have to pay two $20 co-pays every 90-days.

Roy Hubbard wrote:
I don't remember specifics, but a few years ago a pharmaceutical firm was granted the exclusive right to manufacture and distribute a medication I was taking at the time. The price went from $7 a bottle up to $450 a bottle overnight, and there was a period where I needed to foot the difference out of pocket because my insurance wouldn't cover it.

That would be  Colchicine.     It's  0.04 per pill in Canada wholesale.(similar cost as ASA, Acetaminophen etc.)
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Drug Goes From $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/busin … .html?_r=0

Pyrimethamine (Daraprim)    0.45 per pill retail (generic) from the mail order pharmacies in Canada

Historical pricing ---   (0.17 1/4 cents in 2013)
http://pricebuysideeffects.org/buy-dara … ABLETPrice


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrimethamine       (chemical structure is simpler than Asperin)
"It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the most important medications needed in a basic health system".

http://www.newsforage.com/2015/09/ceo-w … -more.html


Meet the most despised man in the world: Global outrage as 32-year-old ex-hedge funder buys rights to AIDS drug and promptly raises price overnight by 5500% - from $13.50 to $750.00 per pill
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article … -5500.html
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Tuberculosis drug price jumps 2,000%, shocks doctors
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/tb-drug-p … -1.3237868
"Overnight in North America, cycloserine went from $15 US per pill to $360 US."
"The patent on cycloserine expired long ago. Elsewhere in the world, it sells for 22 cents US a pill. It is considered an essential medicine by the World Health Organization."


'It is people looking to make a quick buck.'
— Prof. Amir Attaran



Lawmakers Probe ‘Staggering’ Price Hikes for Generic Drugs
http://blogs.wsj.com/pharmalot/2014/10/ … ric-drugs/

"In a letter to the drugmaker, the lawmakers pointed to the price hike for Albuterol Sulfate, which is used to treat asthma and other lung conditions. The average cost for a bottle of 100 pills was $11 last October, but rose to $434 by this past April. And the doxycycline hyclate antibiotic cost $20 last October for a bottle of 500 tablets, but by April, the price was $1,849, according to their pricing chart."


When a drug costs 30 times what it once did
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/07 … s-20130308

Michael Bots wrote:
It's hard to claim there is a free market and at the same time acknowledge a protected monopoly on a simple and inexpensive chemical that has been sold for more than half a century..

It is both - and the system only works because it is both

Drug companies raise prices because they know you need it. Your insurance(the people they're banking on) have to pay it, even if they fight it, or you will switch to another company that will pay it. So then your rates go up. It's a cycle. But it's a cycle where most of the people get their medication.

If we went to government health care, or a single-payer system closely supervised by the government, this means less competition, which means companies are less likely to pay for drugs that have had their prices hiked. It's not like you can go elsewhere. Which means that in the short term, people will not get their drugs. But then drug companies will see their sales go down, and will stop hiking prices - so in the long term, people get their drugs cheaper.

Where you fall on the health care debate really comes down to whether you're more concerned with the short or the long term, and how long you think 'the short term' is going to be. It's no surprise that younger people tend to support universal health care, since it will be a couple decades before most of them are buying meds every month. If you're 70, now is not the time to go messing with your health care.

Jay Dezelic wrote:
Two problems:

One problem: discussing something that's not even close to on-topic.

Had you read the OP, you'd have seen something like this: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/generic-dru … overnight/

The rights to Daraprim were purchased in August by a new company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, which promptly increased the price from $13.50 per tablet to $750 per tablet -- a 5,000 percent jump -- the New York Times reported.

Daraprim, the common name for the drug pyrimethamine, is the only medication for treating toxoplasmosis, an infection contracted from cat parasites that can cause birth defects. It is also used as a co-treatment for HIV infections, some cancers and malaria.

Martin Shkreli started Turing, a new pharmaceutical company back in February of this year. (He's currently under investigation for "stock-trading irregularities and other violations of securities rules".) Turing bought the rights to 3 medications. None of them are for conditions relating to obesity, junk food, sugar, grain, or any other topic you chose to introduce, other than being in some way related to 'drugs'.

A few days ago, a competing firm started manufacturing a similar medication, and reportedly will be selling it for a dollar a day -- 1/13th of what it was before Shkreli bought the rights, and 1/750th of what he raised the price to be last month.

tl;dr: if you're gonna rant, start your own thread.

Lightcraft Studio wrote:
"Top administration officials cut backroom deals with the nation’s top drug companies to win support for President Obama’s health care overhaul, threatening them with steeper taxes if they resisted and promising a better financial deal for the industry if they acquiesced, according to internal documents released Thursday by House Republicans."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 … /?page=all

REDACTED: Outstanding, thoughtful, pithy and well-written post that is probably not allowed under the censorship rules at this website.

Have a nice day

Michael Bots wrote:
$750/pill pharma company under investigation by Senate for price gouging

$750/pill pharma company under investigation by Senate for price gouging shakedown scam.

C'mon guys, it's a lucrative source of funds. They aren't going to let all that filthy lucre go to waste.

Click Hamilton wrote:
The solution is free market competition and personal choice, not pandering and special interest legislation.

Ha ha, OK.  I guess you aren't familiar with the economic concept of inelastic demand.  A free market solution requires freedom on the supplier side as well as freedom on the consumer side.  When someone is sick and especially dying and double especially if it's an emergency, they are not in a position to exercise free market choices.  Price gouging is inevitable.

Suppose police and fire protection were supplied on a "free market" basis.  You call 911 at 2AM because your house is on fire.  The 911 operator asks for the name of your fire protection insurance provider.  You didn't think your house would ever burn, so you don't have any.  You are then referred to one of your local private fire protection companies who will give you a rough estimate on the cost of putting out your fire.  This doesn't cover the unforeseen costs and your fire putting out bill goes from the estimated $15,000 to $90,000.  Sorry, pay up. 

Oh, and if someone breaks in and murders one of your family members, if you want that crime solved, let's bill you for the cost of the private security company who finds the murderer, the private legal system and the private prison if you want to go with the punishment option.  What's that going to come to?

Why should I or other tax payers pay for your house fire or murder?  That stuff didn't happen to me.

MN Photography wrote:
Suppose police and fire protection were supplied on a "free market" basis.

Much of our police and fire protection IS on a free market basis. We choose from different vendors when it comes to alarm systems for our homes/cars, we can choose to own guns for protection, or to hire private security if we have the resources. We might opt to own a good guard dog. We can choose to have hardwired smoke detectors, monitored by an alarm company. We can have automatic sprinkler systems installed, or at least have working fire extinguishers on hand.  How safe our cars are is more of a function of how we choose to protect them and not the work of the police.

Calling 911 is not protection.. that's something we do when our chosen protections have failed and we need outside help to deal with an emergency. Our actual protection is still largely in our own hands.

Even in the case of police work, often times it requires outside help to solve things... we can hire private investigators, or see if we can get the media involved in catching someone (many suspects have been brought in with the help of TV shows like America's Most Wanted, etc.).  A friend of mine spent 10 years hunting down the killer of her daughter... the police had all but forgotten about the case after a while, and she dedicated her life to finding the guy and bringing justice to him.

Drugs/pharmaceuticals are something that can be worked on by multiple companies. Different firms may work on different approaches to solve the same problem/condition, and the competition to get across the goal line is healthy and good for everyone. Research and development, and ultimately production of drugs, can be done anywhere in the world... but when nations put up barriers to doing so in order to protect their own interests, it stifles progress.

MN Photography wrote:
That's not really a valid analogy.  Fire alarms, dogs, guns are more analogous to the kind of healthcare precautions people take before they have to get involved in the healthcare system

Well, now everyone has to get "involved" in the healthcare system, at great cost... or risk facing heavy financial penalty by our government if they don't. So far they don't make us get alarms and dogs, but perhaps that day may come too.