Drug Prices, Why Are Effective Drugs Priced Out Of Reach of Low Income Patients?

Many Drugs Shot So Far Up In Price During Barack Obama's Two Terms It's Ridiculous. The Democrats Were Preaching To The Public They Were Going To Lower Drug Prices While Insurance Companies Were Denying Payments On Drugs And Rejecting The Co-Payments By Patients For The Drugs That Went Up In Price As Much As 5000% With Obamacare.

Obamacare Damaged More Than Just Healthcare. It's Like The Democrats Engineered An Issue To Campaign On By Letting "Big Pharma" Run Wild Purposely To Destroy The Insurance Companies Intentionally Which Is Their Goal.

  Opinion Written In Response To The Article Posted On

Health: Are You Priced Out of Psoriasis Treatment?

A Hobby Article Written By James Allan | 12-25-2019

There have been many new biological drugs approved by the FDA to treat psoriasis since 2003 as one example of an inflated drug price that most lower income people can't get access to because Medicaid and Medicare won't pay for them due to the skyrocketing prices. The new blood thinner "Eliquis" is paid for by Medicaid and Medicare at $200 a bottle. The COPD inhalers which are fairly new are also paid for by the government without hesitation in the area of $150 a pop. Some states pay for the very expensive $400 and above hearing aids and some don't. So why aren't the new biological drugs that came out to treat psoriasis since 2003 paid for by the government?

I guess this is one moment where I'm going to answer the question I just asked of this articles readers. In the above linked article I posted to go with this article the author states these biological drugs to treat psoriasis will NOT be available to people who are on Medicaid and Medicare because of price. All the drug companies who have created their own biological psoriasis treatments have pushed people on Medicaid and Medicare away from receiving treatment with these drugs through the high cost of the drugs. Medicare Part D prescription drug plan will pay the bulk cost of "biological's" but the co pay is between $1200 and $5000 which still keeps people from getting the biological's.

The spin is a few of these biological drug companies have programs to supply the drugs free to low income patients who have private insurance only. Drug companies have stated in many articles I've read that if the patients have Medicare or Medicaid they will NOT be eligible for the free programs.

Quote From GoodRX.com: The lowest GoodRx price for the most common version of Humira is around $5,130.76, 38% off the average retail price of $8,309.04.

These biological psoriasis treatments are not life saving so Medicare and Medicaid do not recognize the inflated cost by drug companies as a necessary expense. The drug companies know this and want it this way. Back in 2003 when these biological psoriasis treatments were entering the drug marketplace they were affordable and insurance companies picked up the costs if a reasonable deductible was paid. After 2012 the insurance companies started to remove people with psoriasis because the payouts on the biological treatments were going up and getting extremely expensive.

The "Epipen Injector" used to treat heroin overdoses was attacked viciously by the U.S. government when the owner of the company jacked up the price so high only the really wealthy could afford them. Medicaid and Medicare in some states do cover generic Epipen's but reject brand names. I've come to my conclusion about why this and other high drug prices are happening that keep some of these drugs out of the reach of many people who are on Medicare and Medicaid. 

Come ON! of course it's collusion between the "Big Pharma" drug industry and members of congress. But when the collusion deals go bad it's the drug industry that is forced to take the fall.
When these scams to gain personal wealth come to light as in the opioid epidemic that is ongoing now where billions of dollars are being paid out by the drug companies to the states our congressional representatives who profited off of opioids though insider trading investments walk around with no chance of repercussion for their involvement in the scheme. 

If you look at Canada which is a country where government has to pay for ALL healthcare costs you will see the lowest prices on quality drugs anywhere because the government forces prices down to lower government expenditures. All the drug companies that put together high profit drug plans to fill their pockets are destroyed without question by the Canadian government. In the U.S. our congressional representatives steer thought away from destroying excessive profit taking by the drug companies because they are invested in these drug companies for their own personal profit. Congressional Representatives enter congress with meager wealth and leave with excessive riches.

I just bet ya if a person gained access to the investments of our congressional leaders they would find many instances of drug company investments who have extremely high drug prices on popular needed drugs that really work to improve a persons health. Congress voted to give drug companies a 20 year patent before generics could be produced with a 5 year extension if certain conditions are met knowing that high drug prices would develop giving congressional insiders great profit making investment opportunities.

I hear now and again on news shows the patent time is now 12 years but I haven't seen this 12 year patent time frame in "Wikipedia" or anywhere else. All I see are 20 year patent time frames. I searched around and found out after the drug is invented and a patent applied it may take around 8 years to get FDA approved which leaves 12 years for the drugs to remain on a patent.

Which of our congressional representatives would vote against this time honored tradition of screwing U.S. Citizens in the behind by increasing patent times so they could increase their own personal cash value through outrageous drug prices?

So lets take the biological psoriasis drugs as an example since they have only been around since 2003 or so. "Humira" was the first biological patent approved by the FDA for the treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Later on "Humira" was approved for the treatments of various other medical conditions including psoriasis.

If there is a 20 year patent on these drugs then "Humira" will be priced out of reach of the general public until 2023 which was a huge profit taking window for congressional representatives. "Skyrizi" which is new this year in 2019 is priced around "$15,000" for a one year kit which is 5 or 6 shots. "Humira" is injection and pill form. "Skyrizi" gets rid of 90% of psoriasis with the first two shots which are 4 weeks apart. "Skyrizi" will stay priced very high until about 2039 if it has a 20 year patent.

When Humira comes off of patent in 2023 it will send the manufacturing of it to the generic drug companies and drop the price to market value which may mean everyone on Medicaid and Medicare might have a chance to be treated with it. All biological drug manufacturers will be forced to drop their prices also to a reasonable level because ALL doctors will direct their patents to Humira leaving other drug companies with a product that cannot be sold because of price. In "India" a generic form of "Humira" is being manufactured and the monthly cost is only $400 which is only down a few hundred from the discounted prices in the U.S.. After "Humira" goes off patent in the U.S. even the generic "India" brand will fall in price even further.

I read it may cost a drug company over a billion dollars to develop a drug but this is "Bull Hicky". For one think a drug company isn't a drug company without a team of researchers. In fact a drug company is nothing but researchers. A drug company after it starts making a profit from the drugs they produced in the first place has to budget for a permanent research team to create future drug profits. The research team gets its paychecks from previous released drug sales always and forever and NO recouping of costs for the development of a new drug is ever needed. A drug company is just a huge laboratory full of scientists that get paid regularly to create new drugs and do constant experiments. No extra financial outputs are going on to drive drug prices through the roof.

Popular new releases of drugs are just total profit magnets for drug companies and congressional representatives. It's like the town or city you live in making you believe that the cost to deal with an issue will exceed the taxes already collected to pay for the staff and resources to deal with the issues that are already funded.

  Patent abuse is driving up drug prices

The "Stock Act" was enacted on April 4th, 2012 which required every member of congress to post their investment transactions on their websites within 45 days of making them for public viewing. Congressional representatives do not want their investments looked at but when public demand dictated that it become law to have their investments made public they had to give into the public demand and folded to it. After a year congress went against public demand on April 15th 2013 and voted to kill the parts of the law that would make their investments public. Congress could not fulfill themselves at the expense of U.S. Citizens with riches galore through insider trading which they think they have a right to do since there's no legal entity that will punish them. 

As Effective Drug Markets Grow Any Drugs Under Patents Sore In Price To The Point Only The Wealthy Can Afford Them. In 2012 The Drug Companies Decided Psoriasis Biological's Were A Profit Maker In A Fast Growing Market. The Move Was Made To Raise The Prices So Extreme Profits Could Be Realized Through There Patent Monopoly Scheme Of Marketing To The Rich

Biological psoriasis drugs were priced low in 2012 and insurance companies paid for them if an affordable deductible was paid by someone who had a good job. After the market for biological,s started to grow the market became hijacked by the wealthy as a way to increase their personal values by increasing the prices and marketing these drugs to the wealthy and themselves who are the wealthy for massive profit taking. People who were getting their psoriasis drugs paid for through their insurance companies were being dropped off their insurance plans. Even though insurance carriers paid for biological's before 2012 low income Medicaid and Medicare patients still did not have access to these drugs. Medicare Part D prescription plan pays the bulk of cost but the copay is $1200 to $5000 dollars which means most Medicare patients do not have access to biological's.

There's no other way you can look at it. "Epipen's" were getting the same treatment, they were introduced at a lowered price then hijacked for sale only to the wealthy which would produce high profits with decreased production costs. I keep running into the hearing aid issues that were suppose to have been priced into the thousands of dollars then being reduced to under $700 which is still to expensive and an arena of massive profit taking. High tech computer parts are cheaper than hearing aids?

With these drug companies as is with any business who holds a monopoly on any needed or popular product through government mandate the higher prices only the wealthy can pay are dictated which means less production will be needed that translates into lower production costs and the same or higher profit levels are kept. Production at market demand means higher manufacturing costs with lower profit margins.

If a business can market its products to only the wealthy and increase their profit margins from savings on decreased manufacturing costs they will do this. This is basically what's happening with drugs in the U.S. that are on patents and congressional representatives are full participants in this kind of profit taking. Our congressional representatives are, "Milking It !" and creating higher drug prices.

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