A new analysis has revealed that drug companies have raised their prices roughly twelve hundred times so far this year. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: A new analysis has revealed that drug companies have raised their prices roughly 1200 times so far, just this year. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins joins me to talk about what’s happening and many other issues. Farron, when you hear those kinds of numbers, you go, how in the world does it happen? Well, obviously it happens because we have a government that won’t do what they’re supposed to do, because they’re getting so much money in political contributions. The political comp, let’s see it’s the weapons industry and then the pharma industry.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, the highest.
Farron Cousins: And what’s, you know, disturbing about this, when you break that number down even more, you know, 1200 so far this year in the first six months, we’re talking about three times per day, every day, you know, weekends included. They don’t take holidays. But three times a day, one drug in the United States is seeing its price being raised. So every eight hours, big pharma is raising the prices on at least one drug here in the United States.
Mike Papantonio: Let me give you some examples. Pfizer with their leukemia drug, it’s a life saving drug and it, it’s $21,000 per vile. And Congress for decades now has done nothing about it. We’re starting to see some activity now, but even what they’re coming up with right now, doesn’t solve the problem. Congress is saying, well, we, we’re, you know, we’re coming here to, to, to fix the prices. No, they’re not. If this bill passes that they’re talking about, all it does is allows Medicare to negotiate. That’s it. No other, no other insurance entity can negotiate with these prices.
Farron Cousins: Right. And, and what’s gonna happen as a result of that is that the drug companies will just raise the prices even more for people with private insurance or no insurance.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: To make up the difference. So while it is good, obviously that, yeah, we’re, we’re doing something about it. It certainly is not enough. Because again, with Medicare, you’re talking about the 65 and older crowd, you’re gonna see possibly if this ever passes, which it probably won’t, you’re gonna see some reduction on some of the drugs, as long as they’ve been out on the market, you know.
Mike Papantonio: 11 years, yeah.
Farron Cousins: 11 years at this point. And the markups, the really bad ones are usually with those blockbuster brand new drugs, which can run yearly doses when they first roll out hundreds of thousands a year.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. GSK, for example, has a lupus drug. They charge $4,000, $4,000 every time you get a prescription for this, for this lupus drug. They have been on the market a long time. They have been one of the examples that’s been in front of Congress, Pfizer, Merck, all these companies, they’ve, they’ve seen where there, there’s been, what 2000, 2000% markups on these drugs.
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all been presented to Congress for decades now. And the most decade that, that this Congress is willing to say is, well, we’re gonna allow Medicare to negotiate, but they can’t negotiate if the drug hasn’t been on the market for 11 years, or if it’s a newly approved drug that can kill people, just the same any, as any other drug. They can charge whatever they want. This is not gonna solve the problem, is it?
Farron Cousins: Right. And the drug companies tell us, well, we do this because we gotta recoup research and development costs.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: The bulk of the spending on new drugs in the United States is actually spent on advertising, not on research and development where 75 or more percent of it.
Mike Papantonio: 80%, 80% is for advertising.
Farron Cousins: Well, and, and about 75 to 80% of the funding for the research itself comes from taxpayers.
Mike Papantonio: Oh, I see.
Farron Cousins: So as I always say, we pay for our drugs twice.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: We pay for it with our tax dollars and we pay for it at the pharmacy.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Nevertheless, everybody just rocks on like there’s no problem here at Congress. Yeah, we’ll take your political money. That’s what it’s about.
