Of all of the issues facing America, rising healthcare cost is one that digs deepest into the pockets of struggling Americas. To add salt to the wound, a flood of words continues to gush from government agencies about how important it is to control these costs. And nothing - nothing- happens. Healthcare costs continue to rise while bankruptcies go up because people can't pay the inflated cost of hospital and doctors and drug bills.
With all of this dysfunction in the healthcare system in this country, finally a voice has been raised that says there is a limit to what people can pay and, not surprisingly, that voice of reason comes from Great Britain. A British board named the National Institute for Health Care Excellence (NICE) is charged with determining whether a drug is effective on both a curative and cost basis. This week NICE ruled that a drug called Orkambi, manufactured by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, that had an annual cost of $147,000 was too expensive and could not be sold in Britain. (Coincidentally, this same drug costs $259,000 a year in this country. and was approved for use in this country by the Food and Drug Administration) Finally a review board drew the line and said to a drug company, "your drug costs too much". Vertex - and it stock - went into a mild panic that someone in authority said one of their drugs was not cost effective and could not be sold. An action that was long, long overdue.
There is a painful lesson here. In America a drug that costs $259,000 per patient per year has been approved for use. The same drug that costs $147,000 in Great Britain was found to be too expensive. Why? The simple, but distressing answer. is that Vertex and other drug companies spend $billions to buy Congress to do their bidding. And Congress repays the drug companies with laws that soak taxpayers and enrich the companies. What's that you say, "further proof'". OK, how about this: An ongoing and glaring injustice is the inability for Medicare to negotiate better prices for its drug purchases which could amount to a savings of $billions a year. A waste enabled by Congress. It is tragic that I don't hear about this Congressional boondoggle from any of the presidential candidates from either party