Pharma Corporations Heard Americans’ Cries, Then Vow to Raise Prices Again
Note: Many of America’s largest pharma companies have begun the year by deliberately choosing to push through a series of price increases for vital medications that many Americans need to survive or manage chronic conditions.
Big Pharma got the memo, but has no intention of changing – at least, not on its own.
Prescription corporations understand that Americans are enraged by their rampant profiteering on suffering.
In these figures, we see the industry walking a treacherous line: charging more for prescriptions as always, yet keeping hikes just under 10 percent, in hopes they can manage rage while increasing already record-setting profits.
This at a time when treatment rationing is on the rise, scrips are a leading driver of increases in American health care costs, families are going bankrupt from prescription bills and Americans across party lines rank reducing prescription prices as one of their top priorities for Congress.
Notably, the increases are several times the rate of medical inflation (a mere 1.68 percent last year). The pharmaceutical sector continues to flout market economics by increasing its prices on old products year-by-year. This is because our government gives these corporations monopolies, limits the public’s ability to negotiate with monopolists and does nothing to impose fiscal disciplines on price.
There is a remedy: The “Stop Price Gouging Act,” introduced by U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and U.S. Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), could end exorbitant charges from prescription corporations on essential products like the EpiPen and common opioid addiction treatments.
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