Heath Care Reform Forum
Our government has a long history of regulating prescription drugs for safety and effectiveness. We need to tell our representatives that it's time to address drug pricing. Here's why:
Wonder why health care costs in the USA are almost twice as much as they are in other developed countries? Follow the money from the pockets of the paying patients to the coffers of Big Pharma. One major reason for the higher cost of health care and insurance premiums is skyrocketing prescription drug prices.
Among the most profitable industries in the U.S. economy, pharmaceutical companies benefit from legal protections and from monopolistic and marketing practices that enable them to set prices without relation to the costs of production or a competitive marketplace.
Recently one company bought the rights to the drug Daraprim and overnight hiked the price 5000%, from $13.50 to $750. Another bought the right to sell the life-saving drug, Epinephrine, in a two pack dispenser and raised the price 650% from $94 to $608. These two examples reflect an industry wide trend that has caused loud complaints from the public and congressional committees.
In 1940, Congress created the Food and Drug Administration in response to a lethal mistake by a drug company that caused 100 people to die. The FDA now protects the public by assuring that all drugs are proven “safe and effective” before they can be marketed.
Prohibitively high prices of life-saving medications are deadly to the public. Let's tell our congressmen/women and senators to protect us by regulating the costs of pharmaceuticals so they will be available and affordable for all of us.
Clara Caldwell
Rock Island
Wonder why health care costs in the USA are almost twice as much as they are in other developed countries? Follow the money from the pockets of the paying patients to the coffers of Big Pharma. One major reason for the higher cost of health care and insurance premiums is skyrocketing prescription drug prices.
Among the most profitable industries in the U.S. economy, pharmaceutical companies benefit from legal protections and from monopolistic and marketing practices that enable them to set prices without relation to the costs of production or a competitive marketplace.
Recently one company bought the rights to the drug Daraprim and overnight hiked the price 5000%, from $13.50 to $750. Another bought the right to sell the life-saving drug, Epinephrine, in a two pack dispenser and raised the price 650% from $94 to $608. These two examples reflect an industry wide trend that has caused loud complaints from the public and congressional committees.
In 1940, Congress created the Food and Drug Administration in response to a lethal mistake by a drug company that caused 100 people to die. The FDA now protects the public by assuring that all drugs are proven “safe and effective” before they can be marketed.
Prohibitively high prices of life-saving medications are deadly to the public. Let's tell our congressmen/women and senators to protect us by regulating the costs of pharmaceuticals so they will be available and affordable for all of us.
Clara Caldwell
Rock Island
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