Big Pharma Pockets $711 Billion in Profits by Robbing Seniors, Taxpayers

[unhappycamper]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ethan-rome/big-pharma-pockets-711-bi_b_3034525.html?utm_hp_ref=business&ir=Business

Big Pharma Pockets $711 Billion in Profits by Robbing Seniors, Taxpayers
Ethan Rome
Posted: 04/08/2013 8:24 am

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 (HCAN).

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.

There is nothing wrong with a company making profits -- that's what they're supposed to do. But the drug industry's profits are excessive as a result of overcharging American consumers and taxpayers. We pay significantly more than any other country for the exact same drugs. Per capita drug spending in the U.S. is about 40 percent higher than in Canada, 75 percent greater than in Japan and nearly triple the amount spent in Denmark.



HCAN reviewed the last decade's financial filings from the 11 prescription drug giants: Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Merck, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Even as millions of Americans struggle to afford their medicines and as Republicans in Congress threaten to cut seniors' benefits, these corporate behemoths have extracted $711.4 billion in profits for Wall Street investors. The drug companies' annual profits reached $83.9 billion in 2012, a 62 percent jump from 2003.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. And they were boosted by RomneyObamaCare in 2010

Which mandated that only prescribed drugs could be paid for using untaxed healthcare flexible spending accounts.

The wet kisses to the 1% never end.

[Newest Reality]

2. This is only news

if you don't know that it simply represents the corporate model and what happens when profit is the number one priority over people, environment, etc.

They can cover that up all they want to with slick PR, shiny things and rhetorical veils. Yet, there is nothing to expect in the long-term but an extension of improved proved-taking in every aspect of our lives.

Government largely takes the heat for the rule of the Fortune 500 while maintaining and illusion of choice. So, we get news like this when the cover gets thin.

If you look at the Republican party, from Conservatives to Tea Party, their well-funded efforts are only one tentacle of corporate rule and a good example of the template for how it is going to go in a more prevalent way with enough time, a barrage of persuasion and propaganda, and those who believe that being dominated by compulsive profit-takers is going yield anything that is free or just in the overall context of a society or globally.

[Fuddnik]

3. They rip off everyone in their path.

A friend of mine comes down to Florida from Ohio every winter for a couple of months. He wasn't sure if he would be able to fish, because of arthritis and bursitis in his shoulder. This little old lady, who works with my wife, gets a prescription pain ointment that she swears by. I told my friend to ask his doctor about it.

He got it for his wife, who has severe arthritis. When he came down, we had lunch and he said it really helped his wife, but it cost $80 for a small tube. He was talking with some Canadians he fishes with, and they told him that they sell the exact same ointment, OTC in Canada, and it costs less than $10.

I mentioned it to my pharmacist while I was bitching about my prescription copay for a blood pressure medication jumping from $40 to $80 per month. His tech asked why the difference in pricing. I told her about congressional campaign contributions to keep prices unregulated, and extend patents.

The boss got highly indignant, and said that the poor pharma companies barely had enough money to do research, and couldn't even create new antibiotics.

I didn't feel like arguing with such divine stupidity. It was the last prescription I had filled there.

[mother earth]

4. Isn't the recovery grand? The wealthy never had it so good. nt