Why We Allow Big Pharma to Rip Us Off by Robert Reich

[Crewleader]

Why We Allow Big Pharma to Rip Us Off

by Robert Reich

Sunday, October 5, 2014

According to a new federal database put online last week, pharmaceutical companies and device makers paid doctors some $380 million in speaking and consulting fees over a five-month period in 2013.

Some doctors received over half a million dollars each, and others got millions of dollars in royalties from products they helped develop.

Doctors claim these payments have no effect on what they prescribe. But why would drug companies shell out all this money if it didn’t provide them a healthy return on their investment?

America spends a fortune on drugs, more per person than any other nation on earth, even though Americans are no healthier than the citizens of other advanced nations.

Of the estimated $2.7 trillion America spends annually on health care, drugs account for 10 percent of the total.

http://robertreich.org/post/99279814665

[Man from Pickens]

1. Speaking of return on investment

there's nothing in the world that returns on investment like the money PhRma gives to politicians - nothing. Nothing even close.

[Crewleader]

2. Indeed, and the cost to us is unbelieveable all the way around.

Thanks for posting Man from Pickens

[DemReadingDU]

3. 10/5/14 Segment 60 Minutes - High Cost of Cancer Drugs

Very interesting segment!

10/5/14 The cost of cancer drugs

Lesley Stahl discovers the shock and anxiety of a cancer diagnosis can be followed by a second jolt: the astronomical price of cancer drugs

"Dr. Hagop Kantarjian: The only drug that works is a drug that a patient can afford."

Click here for transcript, and audio appx 14 minutes
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cost-of-cancer-drugs/

[Demit]

4. The article is mostly about 'how'. Here's the 'why'—

"...Why do we put up with this? It’s too facile to say we have no choice given how much the industry is spending on politics. If the public were sufficiently outraged, politicians and regulatory agencies wouldn’t allow this giant ripoff.

But the public isn’t outraged. That’s partly because much of this strategy is hidden from public view.

But I think it’s also because we’ve bought the ideological claptrap of the “free market” being separate from and superior to government.

And since private property and freedom of contract are the core of the free market, we assume drug companies have every right to charge what they want for the property they sell. ..."


And that's it. I like Robert Reich, but I expected the article to be more about our reactions/response. Maybe I'm just grumpy b/c it's Monday.

[DemReadingDU]

5. That was a point in the 60 minutes segment - just say no

some snippets...

Dr. Peter Bach: He said, "Peter, I think we're not going to include a new cancer drug because it costs too much." Bach determined that since patients would have to take Zaltrap for several months, the price tag for 42 days of extra life would run to nearly $60,000. What they then decided to do was unprecedented: reject a drug just because of its price.

But it all starts with the drug companies setting the price. Dr. Peter Bach: We have a pricing system for drugs which is completely dictated by the people who are making the drugs. Right after their editorial was published, the drug's manufacturer, Sanofi, cut the price of Zaltrap by more than half.

Dr. Peter Bach: It was a shocking event. Because it was irrefutable evidence that the price was a fiction. All of those arguments that we've heard for decades, "We have to charge the price we charge. We have to recoup our money. We're good for society. Trust us. We'll set the right price."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cost-of-cancer-drugs/

[Doctor_J]

6. Use to be called "kickbacks"

now speaking and consulting fees.

[Scuba]

7. K&R

[genxlib]

8. It's been going on a long time and getting worse

A very close friend of mine is in the biz. She's gotten fairly high up but early on she was an area sales rep.

25 years ago, her company threw a shindig for Doctors at an annual conference and she invited me along as a guest.

This party was a broadway style show starring Dixie Carter and Tony Randall. Between acts, the drug company would bring people on stage and give them oversized checks for various programs that the Doctors supported.

It was nauseating to watch. Completely legal and done without shame.