No matter how much evidence piles up that pharmaceutical companies are gouging consumers and manipulating prescription drug prices, many Americans continue to defend the industry’s multi-billion-dollar profits.
This week, “60 Minutes” detailed a lawsuit filed by the attorney general of Connecticut and joined by more than 40 other states (including Illinois) against 16 prescription drug companies for colluding in a price-fixing scheme to boost the cost of generic drugs by as much as 1,000%.
OPINION
The lawsuit contends that the largest manufacturers of generic drugs (which are supposed to be cheaper than name brands) conspired to artificially inflate prices for hundreds of generic drugs, including drugs for diabetes and cancer.
The Connecticut attorney general called it an “attack on the American people” and the “biggest corporate cartel in history.”
For decades this country has made people pay more for name-brand prescription drugs than any other nation in the world. The same drug can cost more than three times as much here as in Canada, France or England.
Why?
Most industrialized countries regulate the cost of prescription drugs through national health care plans. In the U.S., the “free market” generally determines the price.
Due to deductibles and other loopholes in private insurance plans, many Americans are forced to spend thousands of dollars out of pocket for their prescriptions and some are forced to choose between their medications or food.
Drug companies say the cost here is higher because U.S. consumers pick up the tab for the rest of the world when it comes to costly research into new drug development.
Why is that our responsibility?
I’ve never understood the logic, but I’ve heard ordinary people recite that propaganda line as if it were a logical defense for price gouging.
Even when the influence of big pharma and drug distribution networks becomes deadly, the American public doesn’t seem to care.
DEA agents have told news organizations that after they determined that large drug distribution companies were responsible for the spread of opioids and began taking legal steps to punish them, they were stymied when the drug industry used its clout to influence the U.S. Justice Department to impede investigations.
Meanwhile, the number of opioid-linked deaths has tripled since 1999 to about 15,000 a year.
By the way, you may recall a story from three years ago about the price of EVZIO, the drug used to reverse opioid overdoses, being jacked up from $575 to $4,000, an increase of more than 550% during the height of the opioid crisis.
After publicity and resulting public pressure, drug companies often temporarily respond by lowering prices or coming up with lower cost alternatives. Then they go back to their price-gouging ways.
When you let profits determine the price of prescription drugs, you encourage companies to make as much money as they can despite the impact on people.
That’s capitalism.
That’s what drives our entire health care system. And there’s often no relationship between the quality of health care and those massive profits.
Even President Donald Trump has denounced the fact that Americans are forced to fund nearly all the prescription drug research in the world. But Trump has actually placed the blame on foreign countries because they refuse to pay the extortionist prices demanded by the prescription drug industry.
It’s the fault of foreign governments that we’re paying more, according to Trump. Well, Trump’s not alone in twisting logic beyond the breaking point when it comes to defending the cost of drugs or health care.
If Americans are not going to stand up for themselves and their children, no one else is going to do it. People are willing to pay whatever it takes to stop their pain or live a little longer. Drug companies will make whatever they can off their suffering.
That’s how capitalism and the free market works.
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