Surprise!

[nitro]

The U.S. Pays a Lot More for Top Drugs Than Other Countries
By Robert Langreth , Blacki Migliozzi & Ketaki Gokhale
December 18, 2015

"Prices for brand-name drugs are typically higher in the U.S. than other developed countries. The drug industry has argued it's misleading to focus on U.S. list prices that exclude discounts struck behind closed doors with insurers.

A Bloomberg News analysis finds that even after these discounts, prices are higher in the U.S. than abroad. Seven of eight top-selling drugs examined still cost more in the U.S. than most other countries..."


http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-drug-prices/

 

[dealmaker]

 

[Arnie]

To the Editor:

Re “The U.S. Pays a Lot More for Top Drugs Than Other Countries” (Dec. 10):

Your article failed to include important information about the broader context of health care spending in the U.S. and around the world.


The fact is that drug prices are far from unique compared to other categories of health care spending. Compared to other developed countries, spending in the U.S. is higher for nearly all categories of health care.

For example, a hospital stay in the U.S. costs over $18,000 on average. The countries that come closest to spending as much (Canada, the Netherlands and Japan) spend between $4,000 and $6,000 less per stay. Across OECD countries, the average cost of a hospital stay is about one-third that of the U.S., at $6,200. A 2010 study (Koechlin et al.) found that many common medical procedures such as appendectomies and coronary angioplasties cost two or even three times as much in the U.S. than in other OECD countries.

Additionally, according to a 2012 Commonwealth Fund Report, in select OECD countries, the average prices for the 30 most commonly prescribed generics are almost double the average prices of these medicines in the U.S. A recent study found that the higher prices of generics in Spain, relative to the U.S., were an unintended consequence of price controls intended to keep costs down.

Finally, the discounts on drugs and other areas of health care spending that other countries may enjoy are not without costs of their own. Survival rates for many types of cancer in the U.S. are significantly higher than for patients in the U.K., largely because the U.K.’s health system restricts access to many therapies in an effort to drive down costs.


Any examination of spending on prescription drugs ought to carefully assess the value of innovative medicines and patient access to them, and do so in the context of the health care system overall.

Jim Greenwood
President and CEO, Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) Washington
Dec. 28, 2015

 

[nitro]

Soon people that don't have enough to eat will resort to cannibalism

Elderly Floridian cannot afford medicine, kills suffering wife

An elderly Florida man was in jail on Thursday after he said he fatally shot his ailing wife because her medications were no longer affordable and she was in pain.

William J. Hager, 86, was being held without bond in jail after telling responding authorities on Monday that he had shot his wife, Carolyn, in the head as she slept that morning in their home in Port St. Lucie, according to an arrest affidavit released by the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office.

Hager called the 911 emergency line at 1 p.m., several hours after the fatal shooting, the affidavit said. Hager told authorities that after the shooting he went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, and called his daughters to tell them what he had done.

"I want to apologize I didn't call earlier. I wanted to tell my kids what happened first," Hager told authorities, according to the affidavit....

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...ne-kills-suffering-wife/ar-BBtfWNO?li=BBnbfcL

 

[WildBill]

Not unlike the stringent auto inspections in Japan that force people to buy a new car rather than repair and keep an older model running.

Usually the country of origin gets the shaft to protect higher profits in the home market.

 

[nitro]

How Big Pharma Uses Charity Programs to Cover for Drug Price Hikes

A billion-dollar system in which charitable giving is profitable.

In August 2015, Turing Pharmaceuticals and its then-chief executive, Martin Shkreli, purchased a drug called Daraprim and immediately raised its price more than 5,000 percent. Within days, Turing contacted Patient Services Inc., or PSI, a charity that helps people meet the insurance copayments on costly drugs. Turing wanted PSI to create a fund for patients with toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that is most often treated with Daraprim.

Having just made Daraprim much more costly, Turing was now offering to make it more affordable. But this is not a feel-good story. It’s a story about why expensive drugs keep getting more expensive, and how U.S. taxpayers support a billion-dollar system in which charitable giving is, in effect, a very profitable form of investing for drug companies—one that may also be tax-deductible.

PSI, which runs similar programs for more than 20 diseases, jumped at Turing’s offer and suggested the company kick things off with a donation of $22 million, including $1.6 million for the charity’s costs. That got Turing’s attention. “Did you see the amounts??? $22MM!!!” wrote Tina Ghorban, Turing’s senior director of business analytics, in an e-mail to a colleague. (The document was obtained by congressional investigators looking into the company’s pricing.) Turing ultimately agreed to contribute $1 million for the patient fund, plus $80,000 for PSI’s costs.


PSI is a patient-assistance charitable organization, commonly known as a copay charity. It’s one of seven large charities (among many smaller ones) offering assistance to some of the 40 million Americans covered through the government-funded Medicare drug program. Those who meet income guidelines can get much or all of their out-of-pocket drug costs covered by a charity: a large initial copay for a prescription, another sum known as the coverage gap or the donut hole, and more-modest ongoing costs. It adds up fast. After Turing raised Daraprim’s price, some toxoplasmosis patients on Medicare had initial out-of-pocket costs of as much as $3,000....

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...harma-wants-to-help-pay-for-your-prescription

 

[nitro]

The price of an EpiPen has skyrocketed more than 500% since 2009 — and people are losing patience

About a year ago, Martin Shkreli's Turing Pharmaceuticals bought a drug and then hiked up its price by 5,000%, raising awareness about how the cost of a drug can skyrocket virtually overnight, especially when it doesn't face much generic competition.

Today, drug prices are still going up across the board. Case in point: The EpiPen...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/comp...ple-are-losing-patience/ar-BBvV5Aw?li=BBnb7Kz

 

[Covertibility]

It makes one wonder why those who before dying off because they couldn't afford the drugs, just don't decide to get a good double barrel and go after the CEO's of these companies....

Maybe I'm old school....
Anyone know what the mob is doing? I would find it hard to believe they're paying these prices. I don't think drug shipments come through the docks.

 

[piezoe]

The U.S. Pays a Lot More for Top Drugs Than Other Countries
By Robert Langreth , Blacki Migliozzi & Ketaki Gokhale
December 18, 2015

"Prices for brand-name drugs are typically higher in the U.S. than other developed countries. The drug industry has argued it's misleading to focus on U.S. list prices that exclude discounts struck behind closed doors with insurers.

A Bloomberg News analysis finds that even after these discounts, prices are higher in the U.S. than abroad. Seven of eight top-selling drugs examined still cost more in the U.S. than most other countries..."


http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-drug-prices/

Time for a massive class action law suit. United Health (and all other similar insurers) in computing when the doughnut hole kicks in medicare part D, do not reveal to the claimant whether the amount of benefit they report having paid differs from the amount actually remitted by the insurer. If any discounts have been negotiated by the insurer this information certainly does not show up as a separate item in patient billing. Instead the bill shows "What the plan Paid". But the question is, is that actually what was paid? For example, in 2013 the Drug "combivent" was billed to patients with United Health, Part D coverage as costing the plan $226 and the patient a 45$ copay for a total cost of $271. This is virtually identical to the cost you would have been quoted by a pharmacist in 2013 for the cost of the drug (~$271) if you had no insurance. Now, if in fact United Health did not pay $226, as they stated in the plan's monthly statement sent to the claimant, but a lesser, privately negotiated amount, than United Health is defrauding the patient. And in more than one way. One of the ways the claimant would be defrauded is that the total drug costs for the plan year determines when the claimant falls into the plan D doughnut hole. The patient loses coverage at that point until approximately another 2K$ of costs are borne by the patient. (The donut hole is to be eliminated but surely at higher premium cost.)

The Blues were sued by several states a few years back for just this sort of thing. They claimed they were paying much more than they actually were. As a patient's co-pay was computed on the reported amount rather than the actual, the patients were being defrauded! The Blues lost all of these suits and had to return millions in ill gotten gains. (Not every State sued: Big Mistake!).

As of 2016, Ventolin*, an old and very common treatment for asthma has a co-pay in the U.S. on some part D plans of approximately $50. The identical drug, in a virtually identical dosage, is available in Canada for $26 total including shipping cost to the States. The U.S. co-pay alone, not including any Part D insurance benefit!, is thus about 100% higher than the total cost of the same drug in Canada. Does anyone smell a rat here?
_____________________
*Ventolin in the same dosage is available over the counter for approximately $8.50 USD in Barbados.

 

[piezoe]

Not unlike the stringent auto inspections in Japan that force people to buy a new car rather than repair and keep an older model running.

Usually the country of origin gets the shaft to protect higher profits in the home market.

I'm not sure of what you mean by "country of origin" with regard to pharmaceuticals sold in the U.S., but many, perhaps the vast majority are manufactured off shore. Many are made in India which has a giant pharmaceutical industry and has for many years had excellent capability in organic chemical synthesis. Some are made in Ireland, some in Puerto Rico (a U.S. Territory with independent government.), etc.