I hope every one remembers what happened with ENRON, and like Corporations/industries before their prosperous golden bubble burst. Could we be seeing another mortgage crisis pharma style looming upon the horizon?
In the Health Care Reform Package recently presented before Congress, there is a mandated discount being placed upon the Pharmaceutical Industry and drugs prices that could effect their Monstrous Profits in the future. So they have decided to circumvent the process, and started raising drug prices now; while stock piling cash and profits for those supposed coming leaner times. Could this spark the end to the "Greed Bonanza" that Pharma has had going in recent decades?
Maybe as with GM (Government Motors, Banks, AIG), we can just dump a trillion tax dollars Pharma's way when the going gets tough, and call it a "stimulus package"?
This has at least one watchful eye in Washington DC blinking at this preemptive strike by the Big Pharma greed machine.
From Fox News:
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senator-calls-investigation
Updated November 18, 2009
Senator Calls for Investigation Into Report That Drugmakers Sharply Raised Costs
FOXNews.com
Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida is urging the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general to investigate reports that prescription drug makers are raising prices ahead of Congress' sweeping health care overhaul.
Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida is urging the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate reports that prescription drug makers are raising prices ahead of Congress' sweeping health care reform bill.
In a letter sent to Health inspector Daniel R. Levinson on Wednesday, Nelson said he is proposing an amendment that would force the country's biggest pharmaceutical companies to offset more of the costs.
Nelson cited a recent AARP study that found that drugmakers have dramatically upped the cost on commonly used brand-name drugs.
"I want to know if there's a back-door move under way by the drugmakers to recover some of the concessions they've promised for health care reform," Nelson said.
The analysis by AARP's Public Policy Institute released Monday found that the price of many prescription drugs used by Medicare beneficiaries rose by 9.3 percent from October 2008 to September 2009 -- a rate that's higher than usual when compared to previous years.
The study reported that prices increased for 96 percent of brand-name drugs over the last year -- despite a negative general inflation rate.
"This report confirms what most older Americans already know: drugmakers are raising their prices and enjoying windfall profits, even as the rest of the economy is suffering," AARP Executive Vice President John Rother said in a press release Monday.
"The pharmaceutical industry should be embarrassed when it sees its own price increases put side by side with the general inflation rate. Even as the cost of most goods and services drops, a person taking just one brand-name drug now pays $200 more per year than a year ago," said Rother.
Nelson called the increase "troubling" and is pressing Levinson to fully investigate AARP's findings.
"As you know, President Obama reached an agreement with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which pledged $80 billion in support of health reform efforts," Nelson wrote in his letter to Levinson.
"A significant portion of this support was in the form of rebates to the Medicaid program and discounts offered to seniors in the Medicare Part D coverage gap," he wrote.
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I guess when the President of America makes Secret White House back room deals with known criminal entities such as so many in the Pharmaceutical Industry; what else would you expect.
After all, it is all about the MONEY; and Very Seldom about Health Care or your quality of life Dear Citizen of the USA.
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1 comments:
Its the "50% Off sale!" but the doubled the prices a week earlier.
It's an old selling method.
No one is going to, or can stop pharma Co. as pharma Co exploits human nature. And we will always have human nature until they remove it from the next generations DNA.
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