For months, President Trump promised to deliver a speech that would put to justice the pharma companies he claimed were gouging consumers. But his long-awaited remarks, delivered Friday, sent biopharma stocks skyward instead.
Trump did not call for Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices, an idea the industry had feared, and he did not revisit the caustic rhetoric that marked his presidential campaign.
Instead, most of Trump’s proposals disclosed during a White House Rose Garden event focused on the middlemen who negotiate drug costs on behalf of insurance companies, a group pharma would love to see slip into the White House’s crosshairs.
I think the only way to really reduce drug prices is to impose price controls on those drugs that have no competitors. Monopolies are always bad for consumers. When there are generic and/or competitive drugs available let the consumers decide on what drugs to spend their money.
since drugs (including OTCs) represent only about 14% of total US healthcare costs, it would be nice to see more STAT commentary on hospital and physician’s fees, which dwarf the amounts we spend on medicines.
I dont mind them making a good living. Much of their costs go toward liability insurance and lawyers. Remove that and prices could level out.
@mark, in the case of physicians, i don’t disagree. hospital fees are another matter.
the pharmaceutical industry has become a convenient media whipping boy for excessive prices. when the public sees pricing like spark’s $850,000 treatment for retinal blindness, it seems grossly unfair. what they don’t see of course, is the decades spent in study and research, working to bring these breakthrough therapies to patients.
Considering that physician salaries only make up 7-8% of total health care costs, I think your ire is miguided.
Kerry, we the taxpayers pay for the research that is needed to create these prescription drugs, we pay for the research, then they hike the prices so high that most people cant afford them it was our funding that helped create them. Do you think it’s fair that people die or are sucked sucked dry, so the CEO’s of big pharma can continue to profit in the billions and give out million dollar bonuses, we are ones that give them that revenue….lets all celebrate their success while they hold the key to end pain, difficulty breathing, cancer treatments, and suffering for many people, but are too greedy for anyone to use the key to open the door to be able to ease their suffering, or cure them. You might not mind paying a bit more for your meds but some people honestly cant afford them and have to do without, same with healthcare, can you imagine not being able to breath and not able to afford the meds needed to open your airways, can you imagine being with a loved one who goes into anaphylactic shock, only to learn that they couldn’t afford the epi pen, can you imagine being a diabetic and not being able to afford your insulin, or if you had a seizure disorder something that could be controlled but you can’t afford the meds that keep them under control, imagine having a child that has serious lifelong medical conditions which require multiple medications and supplies how does someone pay for that without any coverage? This country is a profits before people country, the healthcare insurance industry decides which tests you can and cant have, regardless of orders from your doctor, our lives shouldn’t be for profit, big pharma decides which meds they will cover and those they wont, again going against doctors the plan made for you, they over ride our healthcare providers plan of care… our lives and its length shouldn’t be decided by complete strangers who are getting rich while people suffer and die……Yet, we can somehow afford to continue paying for top notch, life time coverage for our elected officials and their families, which is government funded healthcare.. and yet they deny us the very same, its unthinkable that in this day and age, when every single developed country on the planet provides all of its citizens with coverage, that we have people dying because they cant afford to pay for treatments that are out there. I dont know but if you don’t see anything wrong with charging people ludicrous fees for meds that cost big pharma very little to produce than you have become numb to the crisis in this country, its not normal, it’s not fair, its a kick in the pants for humanity.. but its understandable at this point as we are no longer a democracy, its not about you or me anymore, our elected officials have enabled the oligarchs to make our laws, regardless of the consequences to follow for all of us, what exactly do we see for all the taxes we have deducted from our earnings? Its all going to create blood baths in other countries…we dont matter, we are nothing to them..we are now an oligarchy..The fact that this country, the richest country on the planet (for the time being, may not be for long) refuses to cover its own citizens should speak volumes as to how much they give a crap about you or me, but we had hundreds of billions more to dump into the DoD, even though its not needed, since 1998 the DoD cant account for $21 TRILLION of our tax dollars, imagine that..imagine how that money could have helped our country, no one says a word about it though, hush hush….someone knows where it went, how can someone not be able to account for that much money? Our dollars are being spent on destroying other countries, blowing the limbs off of hundreds of thousand of innocent children,killing hundreds of thousand of moms and dads, reducing countries to rubble, for geopolitical BS, the US has bombed life out of eight countries and continues on with the madness, that’s why there is none of our tax dollars going to us, that, and the oligarchs are now in charge. This country is a mess..
Kerry, I have had injections for two different ailments, both were a series so there was more than one with each different round, one of the injections was $1,100….the other $1,6000…..each injection…tell me how people are supposed to afford this, its grotesque. I am an RN, retired now..but years ago an over the counter med that the hospital charged $10/pill for and most every patient was put on it if after surgeries or if they were going to be in for a few days or more..you can buy the same med in any Rx store for $3.99 for a bottle of 100 tablets…our entire healthcare system functions for the reasons of profits, its disgusting..that’s not the way it is in other countries, its not the way it should be…..we deserve much better.
Well, i can see my med costs just plummet after that! Not! I’m not relieved, but apparently drug companies and middlemen are. So i guess it’s all good for stockholders and executives. And people still think T cares about us ‘average’ Americans. What a negotiator!
Well I’m not surprised your not relieved, Being an insecure nonproductive liberal. Pull you and the rest of yer idiot friends out of yer arses. Wake up. Be productive. Support the strong help the weak and get a clue. Moron.
Mike for president!
Even better, give Mike the Nobel prize!
You know you reached the bottom, when even the stock market calls out
your bulls…. bluff
PS: evidence indicates that trump is the king of insecure nonproductive, always hugging himself when pressed and spending most of his time playing golf.
Love you, Mike!
The American Taxpayer also helps…
https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/YourMoney/story?id=129651
The press conference was a embarrassment, a complete cave-in to big pharma, with a former Lilly executive holding his hand.