Big Pharma, having made a killing with Medicare Part D, now fears Dem Congress

[BurtWorm]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/06/business/06drug.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print


For big drug companies, the new Medicare prescription benefit is proving to be a financial windfall larger than even the most optimistic Wall Street analysts had predicted.

But those gains may come back to haunt drug makers if Democrats take control of Congress this week.

Democrats, who have long charged that the drug industry is profiteering at taxpayers’ expense, say they want to introduce legislation to revoke the law that bars Medicare from negotiating prices directly with drug makers like Pfizer for the medicines it buys.

Medicare now pays for drugs indirectly, through the private insurers that administer the prescription program — and those insurers typically pay higher prices than government agencies, like the Veterans Administration, that buy medicines directly from drug makers.

The government is expected to spend at least $31 billion this year on the drug benefit, which provides partial drug coverage for people over age 65, according to the federal agency that runs Medicare. Next year, the program is expected to cost almost $50 billion — almost 20 percent of overall American drug spending.

Democrats say that directly negotiating with drug makers could save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars annually, though some independent analysts say those projections are probably exaggerated....

[Burried News]

1. From your keyboard to God's ear.

Just of one of many things we intend when we say: take it back, take it all back.

[Cleita]

2. Big PHARMA really needs to be investigated. They are at the

root of our problems as a society because they have bought so many politicians to pass laws that benefit and profit them like the prescription drug non-benefit that they have scammed senior citizens with at a time of their lives when they are most vulnerable.

A pox on them, one that has no cure.