This won’t happen until the Democrats control both houses of Congress and POTUS. This is yet another stick to beat the GOP with right up to the next election. Everyone knows that drugs are too expensive and the drug companies are right at the top of the list of corporate abusers.
Trump talks the talk, but Cummings is walking the walk…
This is the kind of Congressional proposal that might actually do some good. Republicans have been moot on this issue for years because they don’t want to burden threir funders in the drug industry. Let’s start talking about helping regular Americans.
I get that this won’t happen in a divided government, but I can’t wait to hear the excuses from the drug companies-on record, and in the public discourse.
Another plank for 2020.
Time and again, Trump has complained that other countries where governments set drug prices are taking advantage of Americans. Indeed, one of his ideas would shift Medicare payments for drugs administered in doctors’ offices to a level based on international prices.
I personally use the VA, however, when I need medicines for my cat/dog ever notice that the Vet charges 3, 4, 5 times what the same med cost at a pharmacy. I told one Vet who would not write a script without receiving at $25.00 fee that it was the last time he would see me. Yea, I’m a very small part of his practice but greed must be confronted everytime it is encountered.
Announcement
Sandoz Inc. is voluntarily recalling one lot of Losartan Potassium Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 100mg/25mg to the consumer level. This product is being recalled due to the trace amount of an impurity, N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA) contained in the API Losartan, USP manufactured by Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.
I fully endorse the idea to force Rumpublicans into difficult votes, by passing good ideas for the Grand Old Politburo to oppose. It’s just that importing more prescription drugs from China is a terrible idea.
Their excuses are easy to predict. “We need to develop new drugs and their development is expensive.” Their main motivation to develop new drugs is to get a patent on them and charge high rates. Many times older drugs are as effective and cheaper but the drug companies hire 20-somethings who look like they just walked off a Fox news set to peddle the new ones in doctors’ offices. The review process is corrupt because the drug companies get to select the researchers who do the tests and the ones who are willing to nudge the results in the drug companies favor are the ones who get repeat business. You basically can’t trust new drugs until they have been used by the public for several years and the only time I would use a new drug is if there was no other option. All of this could be fixed, with the proposals put out by Cummings, followed by an overhaul of the review process that set up a neutral panel to award the testing grants that had its main objective to really test the new drugs and not serve as a rubber stamp for the drug companies.
you can always count on democrats to pass bills when they have zero chance of actually becoming law…
why wasn’t this bill passed when…the dems held all 3 branches under Obama?
in the senate Bernie sanders has actually perfected this approach…as his legislative record would show…though he does have the opportunity to prove me wrong by actually running for president in 2020 instead of just trying to elect a republicon by chipping away at Hillary’s support as he did in helping tRump win election in 2016.
of course that election a complete fraud since the margins of victory in ALL the swing states combined with the actually polling…a mathematical improbability.
but have no fear Bernie will NEVER run in 2020…facing the possibility that he would have to deliver on actual promises will easily put the brakes on him.
in fact expect Hillary! to once again throw her energetic (sic) hat into the ring…a third time…more on that to come.
speaking of tough votes… is pelosi’s idea of a tough vote matching chuckie schumers idea of a tough vote…making Americans criminals and abolishing the first amendment by putting people in jail who support the boycott of the state of isreal for political reasons?
the FIRST and only bill the democrats have actually worked to pass in the senate…while untold thousands of workers have not been paid in three weeks…vital departments and workers experiencing chaos like airport security…and getting worse by the day…chuckie schumer…you just can’t keep such a good man down…a real fighter…the perfect embodiment of what the democrats represent.
“Profits go to new drug discovery, so no miracles without extraordinary profits, so nanna nanna boo boo we need our corporate jets and board meetings in Switzerland with Opus One Cabs blah blah blah eat shit and die.”
Make them crawl over broken glass
I worked for many years in biotech trying to develop actual innovative drugs, as opposed to me-toos and combinations of two longstanding pills. Occasionally, one does find a true breakthrough drug-a good example is the current anti-Hepatitis C regimen, which effects a complete cure in 98% of cases over a 2-3 month course of treatment. The price is high (can be as high as $ 90,000) and guess what- in countries which negotiate prices (everywhere except the US)-they have agreed to pay similar amounts. Why? Because the drugs really work and provide value. But what they won’t pay outrageous prices for are drugs of dubious efficacy and/or little benefit over existing meds,
I’m all for paying for real innovation, but paying those costs should be shared equally and paying huge sums for negligible improvement is plain dumb.
Something that doesn’t get mentioned often enough - the basic research that often leads to these new drugs is often partially or fully funded by the Federal Government, but we get no break on the prices paid.
I hope the law includes some sort of rules to protect us from monopoly pricing - where skumbags buy rights to produce a drug and then increase the price by three times or more just because they can.
Free market, my ass.
There are two BigPhrma lobbyists for every member of Congress. Its where a lot of politicians of both parties get their political donations. Fortunately, Orrin Hatch, the biggest recipient of those donations, is no longer in Congress as well as Jason Chaffetz, Max Baucus and others. But as usual, those companies have simply migrated to fund other politicians to push their agenda.
In the Guardian article from Oct 2017:
In his attack on drug company money in American politics, Trump failed to mention that the companies were among the leading donors to his inauguration alongside tobacco and oil companies.
Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, was the largest pharmaceutical donor, giving $1m.
So if you think tRump will make good on his campaign promise, think again.
It will never happen until Dems control all levels of government AND the filibuster is eliminated. No meaningful action will be taken against the drug industry so long as drug money Dems can hide behind the filibuster to justify their inaction.
Bot meet Dementor. buzz off.
Check the generic names of these “new” drugs. More often than not they’re slightly modified existing generic drugs. They jury rig a molecule to get a patent for the “new” drug with an absurd name, then charge usurious prices.
Drug to cure Hep C can be gotten in Canada for about $600. About $26,000 here in US.
Yes, and they don’t put many resources into developing drugs that are really needed – like new antibiotics.
“…Pfizer, the maker of Viagra…” My pharmacist nephew tells me this is approx $15/tab in US; approx $2.30/tab in Canada .Expensive sex in the US; cheaper in Canada. .