Epilepsy Talk

Senators Thrash BIG Pharma CEOs for Pricing Drugs Higher in the U.S. | February 12, 2024

One in four Americans can’t afford their prescription drugs.

No big surprise.

Prices are higher than any other wealthy nation.

Here are some stunning examples: Johnson & Johnson’s arthritis drug Ustekinumab (Stelara) costs $79,000 in the U.S.

But it costs $20,000 in Canada and $12,000 in France.

Meanwhile, in 2022, Johnson & Johnson’s CEO received $27 million; Merck’s CEO was paid $52 million, and Bristol Myers Squibb’s CEO took home $41 million.

“How many suffer unnecessarily? How many die as a result of that? Nobody knows.

By my guess, it is in the millions,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. 

(Not only do prescription drugs cost two to three times as much as in other countries, one in four Americans who take prescription drugs struggle to afford their medications.  

Nearly 3 in 10 American adults who take prescription drugs say that they have skipped doses, cut pills in half, or not filled prescriptions due to cost.)

Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2022/10/14/executive-order-on-lowering-prescription-drug-costs-for-americans/#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20Americans%20pay%20two,struggle%20to%20afford%20their%20medications.

Sen. Sanders blames a “corrupt” system, and well-paid lobbyists...

“The United States government does not regulate drug companies, with very few exceptions,” he said. “The drug companies regulate the United States government … in a corrupt political system” in which their well-paid lobbyists — 1,800 last year in D.C. — “make sure Congress did their bidding.”

BIG Pharma shrugs: the drug prices have been increasing much faster than inflation.

The companies’ executives would say “it’s not their fault, and that the PBMs [pharmacy benefit managers] are forcing Americans to pay much higher prices,” Sanders said.

And they’d point to the high cost to develop new drugs, “and how often the research they undertake for new cures is not successful. They’re right.”

They play. And we pay.

Read on to find out more about the naked truth, click on: https://www.medpagetoday.com/washington-watch/washington-watch/108671?xid=nl_mpt_morningbreak2024-02-12&eun=g678261d0r&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBreak_021224&utm_term=NL_Gen_Int_Daily_News_Update_active

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