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Senators Dorgan [my homestate] and Snowe [R-Maine] have joined to announce their take-on of the high costs of prescription drugs.
U.S. Senators Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) said today that with a new president who supports the legislation, they expect the new Congress to pass their bipartisan bill that will allow American consumers to safely import lower-priced, Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs from other countries. Dorgan and Snowe said their legislation will bring consumers immediate relief and will ultimately force the pharmaceutical industry to lower drug prices in the United States.
Experts estimate the bill would save American consumers $50 billion over the next decade, including more than $10.6 billion in federal government savings.
Now we have some firsthand experiences of those high pharmaceutical prices in the Sunshine household, so news that Senators have their eye on the pill and the FDA-approved potion is positive.
We’re seeing an energized Congress these days, as though the torpor of the Bush years has already been shaken off. You don’t need me to tell you how the high costs of every facet of healthcare are contributing to the dire straits of every American family’s economy.
Anybody can be one illness away from bankruptcy, loss of jobs with accompanying loss of healthcare benefit, reductions in healthcare benefits just when you may need them most, the stress of trying to help an elder figure out the arcane, Rube Goldbergian choices of insurance coverages.
For too long the scales have been tipped for Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Healthcare industry.
No segment of this market can be overlooked or pushed aside in the reform and restoration to people and, yes, common sense in healthcare. When it became a big-ticket industry, Wall Street may have been in the pink, but the rest of the country has been slipping further and further into the red.
Learning that Congress is taking seriously its responsibility to cure the cancer of the existing healthcare system instead of just band-aiding the symptoms in ways that actually cripple the consumer, now that’s a good prognosis.
A good prognosis for healthcare, for the economy, and for every individual consumer-patient.
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crossposted at Prairie Sun Rising
5 Comments
Thank you for this post and the hopeful information. I get expensive prescription drugs. For a while, I was using a Canadian mail-order pharmacy to get the same prescription drugs, and was paying roughly half what I am now. I finally had to stop getting them from Canada, because Canada was buying them from England, and the supply ended up being not dependable through the mail, but if other countries can sell the medications for so much less, it’s pretty obvious that US pharaceutical companies are sticking it to US citizens.
Some further food for thought on the FDA at C&L. Whistleblowers charge corruption.
thanks Prairie, this is sooo important, people are going without lifesaving medicine so Big Pharma can wallow in the dough. Profit isn’t a crime but extortion is.
The line between profit and piracy has been scuffed away with too much glee by too many the last eight years.
Thanks for the good news . . . may it flourish. Each of us has our own particular problem area, but when you see the overlap, the BigPharma/BigInsurance models that have become operant over time, you quickly recognize a commonality.
Importing drugs from outside the U.S.—in a streamlined manner—will be a boon for diabetics who choose/need natural animal insulins. Sadly, the origins of the problem will, in all likelihood, remain unaddressed. Past bad behavior will be ‘forgiven’ despite the unknowable number of patients harmed. We will, collectively, seek to heal and avail ourselves of new pathways, while leaving those who forced us into unacceptable paths, unchallenged.
Here’s my example. Importing (natural) insulin has been fraught with problems from the time FDA/USDA set up the pathway to allow for such action. Making access easier and perhaps more affordable will, indeed, be helpful. But what will remain unaddressed is the bad behavior that allowed Eli Lilly to supplant a time-proven drug with their new, expensive, PATENTED substitute(s); proclaim its superiority without challenge; and manipulate the market by removing the competition. (In the case of rDNA insulin, the biggest ‘competition’ was the manufacturer of the NEW WONDERDRUG—Eli Lilly; thus, eliminating the competition was done ‘in house’ and beneath the radar of overseers.) The new WONDERDRUG—hailed as beneficial and cost-effective—drove the market. When competition was effectively eliminated, the price increases began, and a captive patient population had no recourse—especially in the case of a drug needed on a daily basis to sustain life. The model has been followed by countless manufacturers, treating numerous maladies, and account for a significant amount of the pricey drugs now available to U.S. citizens.
In the political arena, the lesson we were supposed to learn when Nixon walked away from criminal behavior without punitive consequences, was that we (as a nation) needed to heal and move forward. The underlying lesson that was actually learned (by the people who enabled, encouraged or perpetuated Nixon’s deeds) was that criminality—unaddressed—had no consequences. The unintended (or perhaps intended) consequence is that bad behavior was perpetuated and rewarded, as demonstrated by the past 8 years of blatant misbehavior. I understand that looking forward to deal with current challenges is necessary; but I still yearn for accountability.