No Connection

Nov 16th, 2009 • Posted in: What They're Saying

“It makes it much easier for the drug companies to pony up the $80 billion because they’ll be making more money.”

– Steven Findlay, senior healthcare analyst with advocacy group Consumers Union, quoted in a New York Times piece on Monday. The Times reports that U.S. drug companies are jacking up prices ahead of possible healthcare reform that could curb drug spending in coming years. While drug companies have agreed to cut U.S. drug spending by $8 billion a year for 10 years — $80 billion total — they have been raising prices on their most popular drugs, effectively adding “more than $10 billion to the nation’s drug bill,” notes the Times.

The price jumps come even as the U.S. Consumer Price Index has fallen by 1.3 percent in the last year. A spokesman for Merck, which hiked its prices nearly 9 percent in the last year, said the increases “have no connection to healthcare reform,” notes the Times.

Source: New York Times, Nov. 15.

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