Sanders writes: "Americans should not have to live in fear that they will go bankrupt if they get sick. People should not have to go without the medication they need just because their elected officials aren't willing to challenge the drug lobby."
Bernie Sanders. (photo: Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian)
High Drug Prices Are Killing Americans
01 September 15
ll across the country, Americans are finding that the prices of the prescription drugs they need are soaring. Tragically, doctors tell us that many of their patients can no longer afford their medicine. As a result, some get sicker. Others die.
A new Kaiser Health poll shows that most Americans think prescription drug costs in this country are unreasonable, and that drug companies put profits before people. Want to know something? They're right.
Americans pay the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world -- by far. Drug costs increased 12.6 percent last year, more than double the rise in overall medical costs. (Inflation in this country was 0.8 percent that year.)
Even before that, we spent nearly 40 percent more per person on prescriptions in 2013 than they did in Canada, the next most expensive industrialized country. Prescription drugs cost nearly five times more per person in this country than they did in Denmark that year.
This is not a partisan issue. Most Americans -- Republicans, Democrats, and independents -- want Congress to do something about drug prices. 86 percent of those polled, including 82 percent of Republicans, think drug companies should be required to release information to the public on how they set their prices. Large majorities support other solutions to the drug cost problem as well.
The Kaiser poll also showed that Republican voters care more about drug prices than they do about repealing Obamacare. They should. Republicans in Congress have tried to repeal that law so many times that it's an embarrassment. It's also a distraction from the very real health care problems our country faces. Millions of Americans still can't see a doctor when they need one. Another poll showed that nearly one in five Americans didn't fill a prescription because of cost.
That should not be happening in the United States of America -- but it is. And it's not likely to end anytime soon, unless we do something. Medicare is predicting that drug costs will continue to rise by nearly 10 percent per year for the next 10 years. Tens of thousands of Americans now spend more than $100,000 a year on prescription medication. One drug costs $1,000 per pill.
None of this has happened by accident. Our drug costs are out of control because that's the way the pharmaceutical companies want it. Other countries have national health insurance like the Medicare For All plan I have proposed, and these national plans are able to negotiate better prices. In this country, however, drug lobbyists have been able to block Medicare from negotiating better prices on behalf of the American people.
The pharmaceutical industry is also riddled with fraud. As a result, the American people are ripped off to the tune of billions of dollars per year. Virtually every major pharmaceutical company in this country has either been convicted of fraud or has reached a fraud settlement. Offenses include price manipulation, kickbacks, and substandard manufacturing practices.
Between our government's unwillingness to negotiate prices and its failure to effectively fight fraud, it's no wonder drug prices are out of control. We need to do more.
Here are some of the common-sense measures I will fight to see enacted into law:
Congress should instruct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies on behalf of Medicare. We should use our buying power to get better deals for the American people. Other countries do it; why aren't we?
We should penalize drug companies that commit fraud. They seem to feel the same way big banks do: that paying fines and settlements is simply part of the cost of doing business. That needs to change. We should pass legislation which says that drug companies lose their government-backed monopoly on a drug if they are found guilty of fraud in the manufacture or sale of that drug.
We should end "pay for delay." That's the collusion which takes place between drug companies when the holder of a brand-name patent pays another drug company to hold off on manufacturing a generic substitute. Brand-name drugs cost ten times as much as generics, on average, and can cost as much as 33 times as much.
We should also demand transparency from drug companies, who have been concealing the true cost of their research and development while at the same time taking tax breaks for it and using biased figures as an excuse for price gouging.
We should also make it easier to import lower-cost drugs from other countries. Years ago, I was the first member of Congress to take Americans across the border to Canada to purchase drugs at a fraction of the cost they were paying in the United States. They were able to buy breast cancer medication at far, far lower prices than what they were paying in our country. Americans should be able to do this online or by mail, provided they have the proper prescription from a physician.
Americans should not have to live in fear that they will go bankrupt if they get sick. People should not have to go without the medication they need just because their elected officials aren't willing to challenge the drug lobby. The public is fed up, and they have a right to be fed up. It is time we joined the rest of the industrialized world -- not only by enacting a national health care program, but by implementing prescription-drug policies that work for everybody, not just the CEOs of the pharmaceutical industry.
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Two or three more copycat proposals from "followers" of Bernie's lead in pubic pronouncements and the 1% donors will begin asking for refunds.
FEEL THE BERN!
Bernie knows that most of his domestic economic reforms are doomed or severly crippled by the bloated imperialist budget (more than $1 trillion per year when ALL "national security" spending is included), so why is he not advocating cuts in that bloated budget?
Perhaps he fears what was done to JFK.
"War and Peace: I voted against the war in Iraq, and that was the right vote. We must be vigorous in combatting terrorism, but we can't do it alone. We must be part of an international coalition that includes Muslim nations which not only defeats ISIS but which works hard to create conditions for lasting peace. I will vigorously oppose an endless war in the Middle East."
Now, we just have to convince people that "Bernie can get the nomination and Bernie can win the Presidency." The vast majority of the American people would support each of his positions, if "the media" would just give him some attention. (And I don't mean simply saying he is the left's version of Trump on the right.) Let's imagine we are in Peter Pan land, and let's imagine we can fly with Bernie. If we think happy enough thoughts and believe hard enough, maybe it will work. Vote Bernie, and tell your friends.
Of course we've already been bankrupted by the for-criminal-pr ofit medical don't-care, non-system here and even Medicare is as full of holes as a rusty sieve, ever more likely to be needed as age progresses.
Here's a copy of the relevant part of an email from an English friend who just moved back to "Blighty" after her husband died in Oregon: "It's great to be back in a country that cares for its less fortunate. My cousin has had thyroid cancer spreading to the lymph, so there's lots of doctor and hospital visits, nurses coming, etc., and of course none of it followed up by a bill or even a statement. Today, his doctor phoned him! Unheard of in the land of opportunity, eh? His nurses pop in with different flavored supplements to keep him nourished and try to put weight on. Again, nary a penny changes hands, like them or not and they give him as much as he can drink. The nurse comes once a week to just chat and make sure he's OK; he goes to a hospice to have his face taped (it swells because of the procedure) every week; so on and so forth -but you know all this. Medical care won't bankrupt me the way one illness could in the US. When will Americans all get passports, travel and actually LIVE in another country for a year maybe."
citizensagainstplutocracy.org
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCmJ8AXSzGtdV3ULju_DqsQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNmH-aujZG0
Do we not have enough faith in ourselves to make decisions as they develop?
Why don't we wait and see how the primary turns out? Your threats are duly noted: you're a tough cookie!
If Bernie is not on the ballet, he will not be elected president of the United States, and your missing vote will go to one of the pea-brains currently spouting the overthrow of the universe, in the form of the bigger and better American Corporate Fascism (no disrespect to peas). The stakes are too high!
And, fact is, surprise has always been a formidable tactic in warfare! As is the 2016 race for the seal.
Healthcare is a racket in this country.
Here's is the dr.'s prescription:
1. Congress freezes prices for 6 months.
2. Congress reverses position on "minting coin and printing money" and takes back control of said activity.
3. Congress stops borrowing to operate
4. Congress stops sending any borrowed money to nations that are anti-West
5. Congress unfreezes prices and uses the money saved not being given away, to pay for socialized medicine.
Actually, the savings might just get medicaid and medicare healthy again.
What hallucinogenics are YOU on, Bubba??
To compare our costs to drugs made where the the patent laws and drug production conditions are not as tight as ours is just simply unrealistic. You can order your drugs fro India, some of them may be the real thing, but studies have shown that 40% are not.
Seniors will not have this to worry about, because as Obamacare reaches it's final implementation, more and more expensive treatments will not be averrable to people over 70. Especially since the program that started off taxing for several years before paying benefits and was supposed to be self-funding, is actually costing billions.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2630351/
Yes, and the feds pick up a lot of the tab anyway. Big Pharma spends much more on advertising than research, and then there is lobbying. We be better off just giving more money to NIH and let them handle research into new drugs.
“…a drug company spends $3 BILLION developing a new drug that treats a condition that only 25,000 people have, how are they expected to cover their costs?”
Well, Tom, you are a great believer in how business should pursue profit. Right? So here you think it is normal business procedure to make a drug that almost no one will use. They must know this before they start their research, right? So what does this say about a company that would do this? They purposely pursue a loser product. And you are defending this?
Think, before you write, and defend the indefensible. You will be less of a fool that way.
Sigh… but then expecting you to think first, would be like trying to correct the uncorrectable… wouldn’t it?
Now that is something to think about!
Because -as should be obvious to even you, if the government were behind a Universal Health Care program, they'd cover the costs and be able to negotiate and subsidize any item down to prices that could be covered for everybody.
Or if you like, the government would be controlling -but not shutting down- Big Pharma, not the other way around as it is now; they'd STILL make a profit but not as obscenely for their CEO's and shareholders, who don't give a shit about who lives or dies!
That's how it works in "Civilized" countries!
Tom: Sometimes lonely seniors make appointments with their physicians to meet their need for human contact and attention, and sometimes doctors prescribe meds to gratify this need. When my family took control of my mother's care (she's 89), we were able to cut her meds in half and restore her good health through a combination of close case management, physical therapy, and more daily attention than we could give her when she was living further away. She's healthier now, at less cost to Medicare. My point is that individualized coordination of care can often find ways of cutting costs while improving outcomes.
Yes, Obamacare is more expensive than it needs to be, and some sort of rationing might be inevitable, especially regarding end-of-life care. If you're really concerned about costs, as we all should be, then at least open your mind to the one big change that has so far eluded this discussion: Single Payer.
Go, Bernie!
A case in point: there was a steroid in a cream for topical skin use that has been available as a generic for years at a reasonable price of about $20. One of the drug companies did the "research" necessary to put the same steroid in an aerosol, then acquired a patent for it and now sells it for about $250 a can that contains a smaller amount of the steroid than the $20 cream.
What's ironic is that the federal budget for research and development has been shrinking for years and is now limited to two areas of technology: curing people and killing people.
The reason it's an unpopular view is that it's pure bullshit.
I asked the druggist why it's become so expensive. She said the patent will run out in a year and the manufacturer was jacking up prices to compensate.
There is no excuse for the greed that runs throughout the drug and so many other multi-trillion $ industries.
"pass legislation which says that drug companies lose their government-back ed monopoly on a drug if they are found guilty of fraud in the manufacture or sale of that drug."
not just THAT drug, but any drug they produce and market. if they commit fraud with ONE drug, they should lose ALL their monopolies
and their CEOs should face jail time for fraud
that would stop it
but on another level, healthier americans would use less drugs and that, in and of itself, would put an end to the strangle hold
eat better quality food, exercise more, visit your doctor less and take fewer drugs
the entire medical industrial complex can be brought to heel without passing a single law. good health would do it in!
We can be healthier but our food supply is contaminated by GMO's. The House recently passed a law saying that states are not to be allowed to pass legislation demanding labeling of GMO's.
Prepared foods are made to taste good but have been processed to the point of having no nutritional value.
Organic farmers are barely surviving and that is where healthy food comes from. What happened to subsidies? They go to mega farmers who can make up to $500,000 a year. This money should be going to organic farmers.
By prepared foods tasting good I mean food that comes in a box and can be eaten after being heated in the microwave or oven. No cooking necessary. They are manufactured to taste good. That, and junk food, is also a main reason Americans are overweight. Our bodies are craving food with nutrition.
Your idea is not possible. The MSM belongs to the oligarchs. They own 90% of it. It is their propaganda arm. The only way to get decent reporting is through independent media organizations.
The Sanders campaign understands this and is instead going directly to the people, and independent outfits. In today's world, there is no other effective way.
Right on the Drug Cartel. Wrong on the "cure" of the problem, Bernie.
Here's is the dr.'s prescription:
1. Congress freezes prices for 6 months.
2. Congress reverses position on "minting coin and printing money" and takes back control of said activity.
3. Congress stops borrowing to operate
4. Congress stops sending any borrowed money to nations that are anti-West
5. Congress unfreezes prices and uses the money saved not being given away, to pay for socialized medicine.
Actually, the savings might just get medicaid and medicare healthy again.
- libertarians be crazy! this idiocy accomplishes nothing! go bernie!
# Inspired Citizen 2015-09-01 15:10
...unite the American left...
- bernie has higher aspirations than simply to lure you pledgers to vote zomblican back into the fold
doesn't it occur to you that the 1% will never lose a family member, never miss a $1,000 pill, due to the high cost of meds, no matter how high?
bernie leads a populist movement to capture the souls of ALL AMERICANS BUT THE 1%, our elite masters who could care less whether we live or die! but who act, thru their zomblican puppets, as tho our very lives oppress them!
every pledge to vote green, or to write-in bernie, is a pledge to vote zomblican! go bernie!
... Money in political is a serious threat to the health, safety and welfare of the majority. We as are tens of thousands of other will be voting for Sanders even if we have to write him in. We feel this is a matter of life or death for the majority who are under an oppressive and murderous Oligarchy.
if you would stop listening only to yourself for a moment, vardoz, and start listening to bernie instead, you may do some good yet!
vardoz, we've gotta stop helping our enemies, namely, zomblicans and their puppet-masters, the 1%, and start helping our friends!
you've gotta stop thinking you're helping bernie fix our plutocracy and instead start listening to what bernie says - he's got some really good ideas, you know? he's got a plan - a plan for if he wins the dem nomination, and, another plan, for if he doesn't - a plan for if he wins the presidency and another plan for whether he wins it or not, what we need to do as a nation to restore democracy! - if you can, think beyond voting for bernie! - if you can, think about how writing-in bernie elects a zomblicsn! - if you can, think about restoring democracy!
does it ever occur to you that bernie's plan to restore democracy is a constitutional amendment for public funding, only, of all federal, state and local elections? do you never think about what bernie says? why not? - go bernie!
"I am so glad that there is so much enthusiasm for Bernie. But why do so many here assume that his attempts at change will not be obstructed in the same way as Obama's were by the same forces that obstructed them?
"I would love to see Bernie elected but he cannot change much unless Progressives, liberals and Dems start taking back the House and keep the Senate too. That means getting excited in the midterms and getting the base to the polls between presidential races something we do not seem to be motivated enough to do.
"We can get public funding of federal elections if we do this. That is the only thing will bring big change short of violent revolution."
- thank you, thank you, thanks, bee, for listening to bernie, and his demand for public funding, only of all federal, state and local elections (if you followed his comments after rahm emanuel bought the chicago election, outspending his progressive opponent 4 to 1, i believe you will understand why public funding, only, should extend to state and local elections, too!)
most folks here support bernie but don't bother to pay attention to what he says -
it's like vardoz, above, who doesn't get why bernie caucuses with dems, votes with dems, runs as a dem, and so, varoz wants us to pledge to write-in bernie, to help elect a zomblican - begone zomblican troll!
too many here listen to bernie until he demands public funding or hates pointless gestures that get zombies elected!
... others in Congress ... are too comfortable with all the perks resulting from their silence ...
- corruption in congress is more direct than that! - every congressperson' s primary concern is reelection - congresspersons , by all accounts, spend 2/3 of their time begging billionaires for campaign funds, listening to them and doing their bidding - bernie and jimmy call this "bribery"
bernie calls for a "political revolution", a constitutional amendment for public funding, only, of all federal, state and local elections
without the ability to invest their money to buy elections, the 1% are powerless - bernie's proposed amendment overthrows the 1% - deprived of corruption by the 1%'s private money, there is nothing zomblicans can wreck, now and in the meanwhile, that public funding can't fix - go bernie!
What we need is a federal single payer system. No state money, not state rules. Red state gov't's are competing to see which one can kill the most people.
Someone must know.
"No Piggybacking for Biologics, Says the BIO – Some say the FDA’s foot-dragging has been influenced by lobbyists from the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), which represents the biotech pharmaceutical companies."
I found the cause of high insulin prices in less than 2 minutes. And I'm not too bright.
It's good to know when you are not too bright.
It would also be good to have reasonably priced insulin, too.
It's too bad nobody knows why prices are high.
I guess things will never change.
.
The drug companies claim they spend $3B annually on developing new drugs, and that may be the case. But what is their total income and what is $3B compared with their total income? Where does that $3B come from (how much of it is government grants and subsidies), how much goes for pure research, how much of it goes for repackaging and promotion, etc? Then there's the question of how much do they spend on 1) corporate overhead, 2) advertising and promotions, 3) executive salaries, perks and other benefits, 4) payments to other companies for delaying production of generics, 5) corporate acquisitions, mergers, etc., 6) legal costs, 7) stock dividends 8) stock buy backs and finally 9) how much cash are they sitting on?
I suspect that when you lift the stone and look underneath, you may not only lose your apatite, you may lose your last meal.
Also, while I definitely support Bernie's domestic programs in general (he has to stop supporting Israel), I also think we shouldn't have to pay for drugs, either. Anything we need for our health we shouldn't have to pay for.
- on that score there is little dispute - texas is the biggest red state, with a million texans kept off medicaid - it's like i say: guns don't kill people, texans kill people!
but, on a person per person basis, any zomblican governor can claim the crown - the governor of mississippi,for example, can rightfully claim: we mississippians kill more mississippians, as a percentage of state population, than any other zomblican state legislature!
the wonder is that the american press publishes no statistics, on how many of its citizens, each state purposely kills!
perhaps our federal government, or dems, progressives, or dying folks, should set up a national database, a website, to keep track? it almost seems that some dems or progressives running against zomblicans might like to keep track? unless they poll likely voters, of course, and most are encouraged that disabled folks are dying? somehow i wonder if the same christians who care about fetal abortion care about the disabled dying?
back when vets were waiting for care at vet hospitals, neocons documented that 19 vets died awaiting care - so, if anyone cares about unmedicaided folks dying for lack of care, statistics can be kept - in contrast, i bet black lives matter folks know how many blacks were killed by cops -
bernie demands single-payer, like congress has, that will save tens of thousands of lives every year - go bernie!
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