High
Cost of Prescription Drugs
In the Medicare
Prescription Drug Conference Committee, 6 members from the House and
6 from the Senate negotiated differences in bills concerning
approving prescription drugs in Medicare.
The original bill in the
Conference Committee included the provision allowing for Medicare to
negotiate purchasing prescription drugs by bulk purchases.
It was Senator Jon Kyl,
as one of the six senators in the Conference Committee, who proposed
the original bill be modified to only Medicare to purchase
prescription drugs at retail prices. This was approved in Conference
and became the law of the land upon signing by the president.
The drug companies since
approval of prescription drugs in Medicare, have escalated prices
continuously by the power given them by FDA known as patents, the
drug companies control the price they set of patent drugs also known
as branded drugs.
The Federal government
provides twenty year patents to drug manufacturers who discover a
pharmaceutical drug. During this 20 year patent, the drug company
patent holder can set any price it deems worthy to recover costs
incurred by research and development.
What is little known is
justification necessitating recapture of research and development
costs are mostly paid by American taxpayers through the auspices of
the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Approximately 65% of all
research is funded by NIH. This funding level currently exceeds
annually 30 Billion dollars.
Blue Dogs recommend the
Prescription Drug in Medicare Law be modified to enable the Medicare
to negotiate bulk purchases of all prescription drugs.
It is further recommended
that all new drug patents be denied if any taxpayer funds were used
in financing research and development enabling all drug companies to
manufacture generic drugs and to compete in the market place all
drug prices.
Annual health costs
compound at a rate exceeding 15% driven by the high cost of
prescription drugs.
By doing away with drug
patents for those drugs that utilized taxpayer money for research
and development, annual health costs would hold at the cost of
inflation.
Thus when Medicare is
able to purchase drugs in bulk instead of paying retail prices,
implement same program operated by the federal Department of
Veterans Affairs using the Veterans Administration Federal Supply
Schedule to buy prescription drugs in bulk, which is able to negotiate prices with
pharmaceutical makers, paying 48 percent less for the most popular
brand-name drugs than the average prices posted by the Medicare
plans for the same drugs.
Furthermore reduce drug patents from twenty years to ten years
for all drugs funded entirely by private funds.
Eliminate drug patent extension from drugs for changes in
dosage, color, shape, etc.
Eliminate prohibition of Medicare to
purchase prescription drugs by bulk purchases.
All prescription drugs purchased in bulk by the Federal government will
be made available to all consumers by paying actual cost or paying a
co-pay fee if purchased using an insurance program.
