Getting a lasso round Big Pharma
The US healthcare system is a shambles (e.g. 44 million uninsured, the highest per-capita spending in the world but health statistics among the worst outside the Third World, etc.) but one of the bigger problems is the sky-rocketing costs of prescriptions drugs.
One of the current battles going on in the newly Democratic Congress is an attempt to control the costs of prescription drugs purchased under Medicare Plan D. The previous Republican-controlled Congress (having received $ millions from Big Pharma) had explicitly forbidden Medicare from even negotiating on price with the pharmaceutical companies.
The “so-called” ethical drug industry (the “so-called” modifier has been applied to Big Pharma since the 60’s but only now is the general public really understanding why the term was coined) has long held that any attempt to control their prices would turn off the never ending fountain of miraculous remedies that these white-coated priests of science and medicine produce. Never mind the fact that they are perpetually the most profitable industry in the world.
There was a recent headline article (Showdown Looms in Congress Over Drug Advertising on TV; January 22, 2007 by Milt Freudenheim) in the New York Times that pointed out that the pharmaceutical industry is on track to spend $4.5 billion on TV advertising directed at consumers. This is up from $1.1 billion in the late 1990’s.
I think anyone who watches prime-time TV has noticed that virtually all the ad’s are now for prescription drugs (sleep-aids, cholesterol-lowering remedies, remedies for incontinence, etc.). The focus of the New York Times was on the amount of false and misleading information is being provided in these ad’s but my feeling is this direct-to-consumer advertising represents an easy $4.5 billion in immediate savings to the consumer and taxpayer if it was outlawed. I don’t think prescription drugs should be advertised to consumers at all.
You could also save billions by eliminating all the free lunches, all-expenses-paid junkets, and gifts that the pharmaceutical industry uses to reward our more corrupt medical professionals for prescribing (or mis-prescribing) their products.
And then you could save another few billion dollars by eliminating the high-pressure pharmaceutical salesmen that infest our doctors’ offices, clinics, and hospitals. According to a recent Boston Globe article there are 6 pharmaceutical salesmen for every doctor in Massachusetts. I imagine the ratio is similar for all the other states.
And there might be a few million dollars to be saved by eliminating the stream of money that Big Pharma’s lobbyists use to corruptly influence our legislators.
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