Dozens, of not hundreds, of #independent pharmacists came to the House and Senate office addresses recently in a bid to pitch lawmakers on their attempts to reign in the #mounting price of drugs that has so angered American consumers in the past few years.
The pharmacists swarmed into the lawmakers offices and introduced themselves as the 'white hats' of the industry, and they took to task the #pharmacy benefit managers such as VCS Health and Express Scripts that manage the coverage of millions of Americans. Even Trump is critical.
They argued that to reduce the #price of drugs people should start paying attention to the middlemen.
Indeed, a war has escalated between the most prominent players in the pharmaceutical industry – generic drug brands, as well as brand name and even your average local pharmacist – the different parties are each blaming each other for the soaring cost of prescription medicine in America.
An industry that is greedy
It is an industry in trouble, and the escalating price of drugs is nothing if not shameful. Already an industry that is spending nearly twice the amount that other business sectors allocate on lobbying, the industry is having to spend even more on this seemingly #non-stop lobbying. Meanwhile, President Trump has increased the industry's jittery nerves by accusing them of “getting away with murder."
Today, lawmakers in the House and the Senate are coming to grips with an almost daily assault.
“Everyone is very eager to #maximize their profits and get a piece of the pie, and sorting it all out is complicated,” said Senator Susan Collins, who is a Republican from Maine.
Now many are wondering if a fiery yet rare confluence of #public anger, presidential leadership and political interest will instigate a meaningful change that will lessen the cost of prescription drugs for American consumers.
It seems that everyone is doing the finger pointing at the moment, when in reality there is, according to Chester Davis Junior, the president of the Association for Accessible Medicines, "a lot of blame to go around.” Davis compares it to the photo of the Three Stooges where their faces are broken and yet they still point at each other.
Both parties, the Democrats and Republicans, under Trump, have zeroed in on the task of decreasing Drug Prices as the top priority for their #health care bills.
Healthcare and public rage
There has been so much public anger that it isn't surprising. Many medicines have seemed to quadruple, if not more, in price making some illnesses a bankrupting burden to carry. Compared to the UK and Australia and Canada, the United State's healthcare sector is a joke – with mourning costs, #profiteering and little financial regulation.
Americans are absolutely outraged at the #skyrocketing prices for what are seen as essential medicine; these include insulin for diabetes, for example, and EpiPens for those who have severe allergic reactions.
But the question remains to be answered, will the existing efforts to bring prices down survive the aggressive and bullish lobbying as well as campaign contributions made by those bullish healthcare companies?
Case in point: The healthcare and pharma industry pays around #1,100 lobbyists – which is more than two lobbyists to each member of Congress. This should be unlawful.
Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat of Texas described it as an uphill fight to the New York Times, and he has recently been pressing Congress to increase competition and to also lower prices of drugs, “given the millions they have spent on lobbying, advertising and campaign contributions.”
There are #billions in profits at stake; and, the cost of lobbying is immense: the industry has spent $78 million this first quarter of the year on lobbying, which was a 14 percent increase from last year, this is as recorded by the Center for Responsive Politics.
