"The CEO Power Panel includes the leaders of 100 hospital systems, insurance companies, large physician practices, trade groups and not-for-profits."
"Nearly seven-eighths of the country's top healthcare leaders favor the government taking a bigger role in curbing the rising cost of prescription drugs...."
"....a surprising 86% of survey respondents supported giving the federal government the authority to negotiate drug prices on behalf of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries."
“But now all of a sudden in that safe haven—the generics—the prices are skyrocketing, too."
“There is a contagion of public concern that could result in a shift in congressional attitudes toward drugs and drug pricing,” said Dr. David Blumenthal, president of the Commonwealth Fund.
"To justify the higher prices, drugmakers or their supporters frequently claim the prices reflect high research and development costs. Most experimental drugs never make it to the market.....But nearly 6 in 10 CEOs rejected that argument..."
"The nation's top healthcare leaders also rejected the argument that the prices companies set on new drugs are based on the clinical value they bring to patients and the healthcare system. More than three-quarters of Power Panel CEO respondents (76%) felt prices either did not reflect or rarely reflected their clinical value, while only 10% said they did."
See:
Modern Healthcare
Comments
Mark Twain
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is precluded from negotiating prices for medicines for Medicare Part D. The Bush administration agreed to that provision in exchange for pharmaceutical industry support for the Part D program, which was created in 2006. That was quite a concession.
The savings to the government if this negotiation were allowed is estimated at $16 billion a year.
press
Why not take away their ability to expense advertising on their books. That's why you see a prescription drug advertised on TV every 2 or 3 minutes.
Oh, and BTW, just to go on record, I am for socialized medicine across the board. Why should anyone have to lose a limb or their sight or their life because they can't afford it?
And to put things in perspective, Great Britain and Canada now have a longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates than we do.
End of story.
and so it goes,
peace,
rono