Hillary Clinton: Prescription Drug Plans Are Out Of Control

Hillary Clinton’s prescription drug plans intend to reduce the cost of out of pocket expense for prescription drugs. This prescription drug plan will hold drug makers accountable for the outlandish price increases that are observably pure profit. Hillary Clinton’s prescription drug plan would permit officials to mediate and encourage healthy competition between drug companies by offering federal subsidies to competitors to create cheaper generic drugs.

Drug companies should never put profits before patients. Our plan to stop excessive prescription drug price hikes: https://t.co/2MdTyJ3Xti

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 2, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s prescription drug plan aims to impose fines upon drugmakers for inexcusable increases in prescription drug prices. Companies like Mylan and Turing have increased prices and lined their pockets with money while people die in need of a drug they simply cannot afford. Turing Pharmaceuticals, owners of Pyrimethamine, a drug used to treat toxoplasmosis, mainly on AIDS and cancer patients, had a price increase of 5,500 percent. Imagine how many people died, sick and in need of a medication they could not afford.

Mylan had a preposterous price increase of its own. The makers of Epi-Pen, Mylan, had an increase of 400% in profit by increasing this lifesaving drug from $50 per unit to $600. Hillary Clinton has addressed this increase directly with the leaders of Mylan. They now offer a $300 coupon for patients that can prove their financial hardship. This, however, still leaves the medication sitting at a fine price of $250. On this matter, Hillary Clinton has made strong statements.

“Over the past year, we’ve seen far too many examples of drug companies raising prices excessively for long-standing, life-saving treatments with little or no new innovation or [research and development]. It’s time to move beyond talking about these price hikes and start acting to address them. All Americans deserve full access to the medications they need — without being burdened by excessive, unjustified costs. Our pharmaceutical and biotech industries are an incredible source of American innovation and revolutionary treatments for debilitating diseases.”

Hillary Clinton has historically been an advocate for the pharmaceutical industry. Her sudden sense of nationwide empathy couldn’t have come at a better time.

“But I’m ready to hold drug companies accountable when they try to put profits ahead of patients, instead of back into research and innovation.”

She went on to say this has become a “troubling trend,” while singling out companies such as Mylan and Turing. These companies do not pay for the development of a medication, but rather purchase the rights once the hard work is done, then grossly increase the price.

Drug prices are significantly higher in the United States than they are in the rest of the developed world, mostly due to the lack of standard negotiating power that exists in nations with national healthcare care and/or drug review systems.

In comparison to other developed countries, per capita, spending on prescription drugs in 2013 in the US was $858 versus an average of $400 for 19 other countries. Hillary Clinton’s prescription drug plan intends to rescind a company’s ability to profit grossly off of another’s illness.

From 2008-2015 over 400 generic drugs have increased in price by a margin larger than 1,000 percent. “New Branded Products” add frustration to the lives of struggling Americans. These “New Branded Products” are protected by a patent, giving the production company the right to prevent a generic form of a given drug from being released. As soon as a drug’s patent expires, drug companies simply reformulate the medicine and increase the market price. “New Branded Products” account for three-quarters of prescription spending each year in the U.S.

.@HillaryClinton unveiled a new plan to tackle prescription drug pricing and rein in Big Pharma. Read our statement: https://t.co/oMM0qnfnIN

— Alliance Retirees (@ActiveRetirees) September 2, 2016

Example, Proventil’s, an asthma rescue inhaler, the patent expired, and a generic was in fact released. The prices came down from $60 to just under $20. Within the very same year, a new Proventil inhaler was released and the older inhaler was banned for CFC’s. This could be a simple coincidence, but it’s doubtful. Hillary Clinton’s prescription drug plan claims to address and solve this ever growing problem.

[Image by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]