{"id":35182,"date":"2013-04-10T00:48:03","date_gmt":"2013-04-10T04:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=35182"},"modified":"2013-04-10T00:48:03","modified_gmt":"2013-04-10T04:48:03","slug":"value-for-dollar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2013\/04\/10\/value-for-dollar\/","title":{"rendered":"value for dollar…"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
Big Pharma Pockets $711 Billion in Profits by Robbing Seniors, Taxpayers<\/a>
Huffington Post<\/font><\/strong>
by Ethan Rome
04\/08\/2013<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

<\/strong>Here’s an outrage that must be changed: Big Pharma has been systematically price-gouging the Medicare program for seniors and people with disabilities – and raking in billions in excessive profits. The 11 largest global drug companies made an astonishing $711 billion in profits over the 10 years ending in 2012, and they got a turbo-charged boost when the Medicare Part D prescription drug program started in 2006, according to an analysis of corporate filings by Health Care for America Now <\/a>[HCAN]. <\/p>\n

The drug companies hold the power to charge America’s consumers whatever they want. Worse, Medicare – the nation’s largest purchaser of drugs — is prohibited by law from seeking better prices. The result of this shortsighted policy is dramatic. In 2006, the first year of Medicare’s prescription drug program, the combined profits of the largest drug companies soared 34 percent to $76.3 billion. And unlike other industries, such as Big Oil, drug companies get something even better than a tax subsidy – they get a government program…<\/p>\n

The drug companies, of course, say they have no choice and need to charge outrageous prices to pay for research that enables them to innovate and develop new drugs that save our lives. But that’s not true. Half of the scientifically innovative drugs approved in the U.S. from 1998 to 2007 resulted from research at universities and biotech firms<\/a>, not big drug companies. And despite their rhetoric, drug companies spend 19 times more<\/a> on marketing than on research and development… <\/p>\n

$137 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Eliminating price-gouging on that scale would go a long way toward addressing the fiscal challenges that are constantly under discussion in Washington – without harming seniors and middle-class families. This proposal has been supported by President Obama and is in the House Democrats’ budget plan. It is reportedly in the president’s 2014 budget plan as well…<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/sup><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I usually try to steer clear of healthcare policy because I don’t know anything about it. It’s too big for me. But other than the outrage anyone would feel reading this article, it does seem to relate to so much of what I find myself writing about in my dotage – the preferential ways in which the large pharmaceutical companies are treated by the government and the outrageous ways they take advantage of every opening. This reminds me of T-MAP which remains only slightly punished for a major level of sin. Pharma has gotten a remarkable amount of mileage out of the "research and development" argument. HCAN quotes the ratio of R&D to Marketing expenditures, but I wonder how much they spend on lobbying? Whatever it is, they are sure getting value for dollar… <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Big Pharma Pockets $711 Billion in Profits by Robbing Seniors, Taxpayers Huffington Post by Ethan Rome 04\/08\/2013 Here’s an outrage that must be changed: Big Pharma has been systematically price-gouging the Medicare program for seniors and people with disabilities – and raking in billions in excessive profits. The 11 largest global drug companies made an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35182"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35187,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35182\/revisions\/35187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}