PUBLIC OPTION PLEASE!
Healthcare reform as we all know, means making healthcare guaranteed and affordable,it also means that life saving medications must be available to all Americans regardless of their ability to pay.
Pharma is being rewarded for its relative docility on healthcare reform, with a huge gift which will extend the length of time it will take for brand name biologic drugs to go on generic status.
This slice of the healthcare bill is going right under the radar, much to the delight of Big Pharma.
There are millions of Americans who depend on a variety of what are called biologic drugs to stay alive. Biologics are very expensive and as you might imagine, insurers are not inclined to pay for them.
We want to hear your insurance horror stories if you need a biologic and have been denied, reached a cap in your coverage, or have been fighting insurance company pranks, delays and tricks.
Biologics are drugs made from living organisms, and they are considered the miracle drugs of the future. They are the new "blockbuster" drugs for the pharmaceutical industry. Herceptin, for breast cancer, costs $48,000 a year, and many insurance companies won't cover it -- or people quickly hit their limits and must pay for it out-of-pocket or go without.
Embrel and Remicade, for rheumitoid arthritis, Rituxan, for Non-Hodgkin's lymphpoma, Avastin, for metastatic colorectal cancer, Lantus, for diabetes, and Avonex, for multiple sclerosis, are just a few of these biologics.
If you think Lipitor is unaffordable, you ain't seen nothing yet. Biologics will be the top money makers for Big Pharma by 2014--and they want to keep it this way!
Here's what you need to know about the deadly big pharma giveaway involving biologics.
Pharmaceutical companies are trying to use healthcare reform to make sure these drugs never (or take a very long time) become "generics" and stay extremely profitable.
James Love has been doing really fine reporting on this issue, especially on that is called the Eshoo Barton Amendment.
Here in a nutshell is Eshoo/Barton:
The Eshoo/Barton amendment, which has the support of many newly pro-PhRMA democrats, will extend the period of monopolies for biologic medicines, when compared to the original Waxman text. The only question is how long. Part of the harm will be the longer period prohibiting generic suppliers from relying upon evidence that medicines are safe and provide therapeutic benefits. Much of the other harm will come from a number of technical changes in the bill that make it much easier for incumbent firms to block entry through technical issues, extended litigation, and ever-greening of protection from small medically unimportant changes in protected medicines.
You also really owe it to yourself to read the scathing article,The Sick Business of Healthcare Profiteering in Vanity Fair about our corrupt political and healthcare system. It will motivate you, (as if you need any further motivation), to keep up the heroic work all of you have been doing for so long.
Here's the piece about the pharmaceutical industry.
With more than $300 billion in annual revenue and nearly $50 billion in profits, Big Pharma is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. The pharmaceutical industry’s share of G.D.P. has more than tripled since 1980, and its average profit margins are now better than 15 percent. The checks forked over to the men at the top of the big drug companies take the cake. Forest Labs’ C.E.O., Howard Solomon, has made an average of $33 million a year over the last six years. (He is 81 years old, so you can adjust for seniority.) Abbot Labs’ C.E.O., Miles White, reeled in $25.3 million last year, with profits up 35 percent, to $4.88 billion. Merck’s Richard Clark and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s James Cornelius each pulled down $17.2 million. Pfizer C.E.O. Jeff Kindler’s pay package was $13.1 million, and Wyeth’s C.E.O., Bernard Poussot, saw a 69 percent raise, to $21.3 million. The two companies merged and purged 19,500 workers (a marriage made possible by tarp money, to make matters worse), which landed Poussot a "change of control" bonus of $24 million.
For many Americans, even those with insurance, pay or die on biologics and many other healthcare issues is standard operating procedure.
About a year ago I told you about Kimberly Green, an extraordinary young woman battling stage 4 breast cancer. Kimberly's survival then and now, depended on Herceptin, a very expensive biologic drug.
Let me put a human face on what happens when you are able to pay for drugs and what happens when you cannot. Here's what I told you about Kimberly.
Kimberly is in her late thirties. She was diagnosed about two or so years ago, with stage four breast cancer. She describes her situation with an air of bemused determination, "after they got to the 19th lymph node [which contained cancer] the surgeons stopped counting". The cancer metastasized to her brain, but I think the brain surgery she recently endured, successfully took care of that, at least for now.
She wants people to know that cancer patients in the United States are dying because they cannot afford the costs of their life saving medications, and many insurance companies either refuse to pay, or only pay a tiny fraction of the cost.
Since we live in a pay or die country when it comes to healthcare, I told you that Kimberly considered herself very lucky. As a child of privilege, she could pay for her life saving Herceptin.
Kimberly is alive and doing very well, as a matter of fact, I'm seeing her this evening at a breast cancer awareness month healthcare roundtable I've been asked to moderate. Woman who can't pony up are much less lucky, many of them die.
She's lucky in one respect. She comes from a pretty damn affluent American family. After sitting with her for more than three hours and listening to the extraordinary work she does (which I'll tell you about), she said, "no one should feel sorry for me, I'm a rich white girl". When she said this, I don't know why, but I just broke down. Like so many, she's battling this awful disease and the merciless insurance industry. No one who's sick--rich, poor or middle class, should face the further indignities heaped on all of us by the delay, deny and deceive for-profit insurance industry.
We need to immediately raise the profile of this deadly Pharma giveaway.
Please tell us your insurance horror stories if you need a biologic and have been denied, reached a cap in your coverage, or have been fighting insurance company pranks, delays and tricks.
HELP US FIGHT AGAINST JOE LIEBERMAN AND FOR A PUBLIC OPTION.
PLEASE HELP US WIN THIS FIGHT FOR REAL HEALTHCARE FOR ALL AMERICANS.
THIS IS THE GREAT MORAL BATTLE OF OUR GENERATION.
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