A side effect of prescription drugs might typically be “death,” but corporate pharmaceutical companies are killing their consumers more than just physically.
Pharmacy prices have been an ongoing and escalating issue for many years, with out-of-pocket costs that are unreasonable. Prescription drugs remain one of the highest out-of-pocket medical costs for many consumers.
Due to President Donald Trump’s hard stance on lowering drug costs, businesses in the industry, like the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, spent $5 million more in lobbying in 2017 than in 2016. While Trump is adamant about going after big pharmaceutical companies — even unveiling a blueprint to achieve this called “American Patients First” — his tax reforms on corporate companies have ended up being beneficial to them, making his whole initiative counterintuitive.
Other presidential candidates have centered part of their campaigns around this issue for 2020. For example, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who is exploring an independent presidential campaign, has said the problem with rising health care premiums is Big Pharma lobbyists who frequently go unnoticed as they control how lawmakers vote. In order to lower premiums, these lobbyists need to be taken down.
When a patient doesn’t have insurance or their insurance doesn’t cover certain drugs, their physical health may be at risk. A woman from Cincinnati who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes was unable to afford insulin after financial assistance ran out, so she died after rationing her insulin. This is just one of many examples that proves Big Pharma is taking advantage of its consumers’ lives, whether it’s in the form of insurance premiums or extremely unreasonable drug prices.
TV ads for prescription drugs will soon include the price of the drug along with the health benefits and risks. Johnson & Johnson is starting with its most popular medication, Xarelto, to test how the information feels to consumers. The hope is that by including the price of each drug, there will be more transparency from big pharmaceutical companies. The newly transparent high costs will encourage patients to look for lower cost alternatives, therefore driving down popular medicine costs.
Alternative prescription drugs can prove to be more cost-effective but can also raise the price of the original brand by significant amounts before its release. AstraZeneca’s high cholesterol drug Crestor experienced a 15-percent price hike before its generic counterpart came out, but it saved patients nearly $6 billion in the long run. Other popular prescription drugs that showed the same trend include Intuniv, Abilify and Avodart.
There can be some relief from price hikes for struggling consumers. Some pharmacies offer discounts on certain drugs that makes the cash price cheaper than an insurance’s copay. Drug prices can also vary from one pharmacy to another because of different contract negotiations. There are many smartphone drug pricing apps that can let a consumer know this information quickly and efficiently.
If lawmakers don’t get serious about this issue soon, the pharmaceutical industry will continue to take advantage of its customers and the lawmakers themselves. Consumers in the U.S., especially those with life-threatening illnesses, are being swindled out of the very thing they need to survive. Until lawmakers see that this is an underlying issue that can be tied back to complicated problems facing the economy, they will never take the topic seriously.
Charlotte Caldwell is a freshman studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk to Charlotte? Email her at cc670717@ohio.edu.
