The Senate Special Committee on Aging is holding the first of a series of hearings Wednesday into why the prices of medicines that have been on the market for decades are suddenly climbing.
The investigation by the Senate committee, led by Maine Republican Susan Collinsand Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill, is focusing on four pharmaceutical companies that bought the rights to certain drugs, and then dramatically increased the prices.
Collins called the price hikes – as much as nearly 5,000 percent in one case — "egregious."
"We've had nontraditional companies come in, buy the rights to these drugs and then hike it up very high – and, as one executive put it, just because they can," Collins tells NPR.
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3 comments:
I believe Obama made a deal with Big Pharma that he would support price increases if they would support Obamacare. You'll remember that he called all of them to the White House for a meeting shortly before its passage.
He will do anything to get his way. Anything.
This doesn't just apply to prescription drugs. Guiafenesin, and over the counter expectorant, used to be ridiculously cheap. Now it's ridiculously expensive and marketed under trade names like Mucinex and Robitussin.
I had one prescription go from $45.00_for 100 pills to $1600.00 for 100 pills. So I said to pharmacist how about generic he said that is the generic.
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