prescription drugs

Prescription Drugs

Armand Biroonak — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:58:53 -0700

Negotiate Prescription Drug Prices

Bernie Horn — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:25:51 -0700

Prescription Drug Prices Wildly Up

Armand Biroonak — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:00:00 -0700

From 2002 to 2007, prescription drug prices increased by 50 percent, more than 2½ times faster than inflation.

Drug Lobby Prevents Price Negotiations

Armand Biroonak — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:00:00 -0700

Drug companies won with the 2003 law that created Part D Medicare prescription drug benefits, prohibiting price negotiation by the government. The law states the Secretary of Health and Human Services “may not interfere with the negotiations between drug manufacturers and pharmacies and PDP sponsors; and may not require a particular formulary or institute a price structure for the reimbursement of covered part D drugs.”

Medicare Part D Can't Negotiate Prices

Armand Biroonak — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:00:00 -0700

Medicare Part D's drug prices are the only federal program that doesn’t negotiate a fair price --its prices are handled by more than 2,000 private insurance plans. Yet, Medicaid, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, the Public Health Service, the Bureau of Prisons, and other federal agencies all buy drugs at negotiated prices.

Part-D Designed with Unnecessary Administrative Costs

Isaiah J. Poole — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:04:01 -0800

The government's administrative expense to run the Medicare program accounts for only 3% of Medicare spending.8 By contrast, the amount of every premium dollar retained by private insurance companies for marketing, administration and profit is 14%.

Veterans and the VA Formulary

Bill Scher — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:56:51 -0800

The 1,300 drugs on the Veterans Administraion formulary account for the vast majority of prescriptions that are filled by people on Medicare - and Veterans can still get the drugs not on the VA formulary. They just need to have their doctor explain why they need the drug in question.

Current System Less Effective

Roger Hickey — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:51:41 -0800

The total size of the private sector doesn't matter. It does not negotiate with drug companies as a sector—which is why we need Medicare to do it. The thousands of different private insurance plans that negotiate individually are far less effective then Medicare could be.

Drug Companies Spend More on Marketing than Development

Bill Scher — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:44:37 -0800

The largest U.S.-based drug companies spent more than twice as much on marketing, advertising, and administration as they spent on R&D (32% percent versus 13.9% of revenues), and they retained more in profits than they spent on R&D (17.4% versus 13.9%).

Millions Rejected the Medicare Drug Program

Anita Chariw2 — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:40:47 -0800

The costs are lower than expected mainly because millions of expected enrollees have decided that the Medicare drug program is not a good deal and haven't signed up - giving more reason to fix Part D and make it simpler and cheaper.