Big Pharma raises prices on more than 1,000 drugs

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Drugmakers are starting 2019 with a slew of price hikes affecting more than 1,000 medications.

The average increase amounts to about 6 percent, said Michael Rea, founder and CEO of RX Savings Solutions, which sells software that helps employers and health plans analyze drug prices. Among the best-known drugs getting costlier are the opioid OxyContin, with a 9.5 percent jump, and the blood thinner Pradaxa, up 8 percent.

Those increases underscore the challenges facing consumers and health care plans as drug costs far outpace the rate of inflation or wage growth. Americans spent $535 billion on prescription drugs last year, an increase of 50 percent since 2010, according to one estimate.

"A 9 percent increase isn't just over inflation -- it's four times inflation," Rea noted. "No matter what, that effect is felt by consumers, by payers and the solvency of public and private health plans."

Inflation around the U.S. remains around 2 percent.

Purdue Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of OxyContin, didn't immediately return requests for comment.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/big-pharma-raises-prices-on-more-than-1000-drugs/ar-BBRIMGg?li=BBnb7Kz

[ismnotwasm]

1. Until the Pharmacutical companies are reigned in

We are that much further from ANY type of universal healthcare

[SWBTATTReg]

2. And rump was going to do something about this, we will all have health care etc., the best, etc. ...

Sure. It's getting worse, not better. No excuse either on why the price hikes.