In our Reform Democrat war against the corporate plutocracy (those behind the curtains at the Bush regime's Emerald City), no piece of that oligarchy is more corrupt and more powerful than Big Pharma, though the health care insurance industry is a close if junior, partner.
Underneath the massive rock of our health care crisis is a drug company cartel that bilks our citizens and taxpayers of massive billions of dollars.
But the nation (and not just Dems) is fighting back.
Our own Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed suit Monday against 48 major drug companies for defrauding Medicaid program and Medicare participants, usually by publishing phony wholesale prices and then allowing providers to keep the difference as a kickback to bribe them into prescribing their overpriced drugs.
For example:
The Pharmacia Corp., which has since become part of Pfizer Inc., reported to the state in April 2000 that the average wholesale price for its breast cancer drug Adriamycin was $241.36 a month and sought reimbursement from Medicaid at that rate for patients who received it. But, according to the suit, the drugmaker was actually selling the medicine to others for as low as $33.43.
Illinois is only one of 16 states leveling such lawsuits against the drug industry.
Also, public pressure is increasing for lawmakers to amend the Medicare Reform law of 2003 to undo the prohibition on the Secy of HHS to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices for Medicare:
Political fallout over revelations in the Washington Post that the Medicare Drug benefit will cost about 1.2 trillion dollars in its first decade.
Large employers are getting into the game, putting pressure on drug companies, distributors and benefits managers to pass along rebates and discounts to the employers and employees:
"Price transparency is an emerging issue and employers are paying attention to it," said Debbie Martin, head of pharmacy consulting at Mercer Human Resources Consulting, a benefits firm that is working with seven employers' buying groups that spend a total of $1.2 billion annually on drugs.
And today Boston University releases a report that estimates at 50% the amount of health care spending consumed by waste, fraud and price gouging:
Major sources of unnecessary spending include administrative costs and profit in the insurance industry, high prices of prescription drugs and health services and, to a smaller extent, theft and fraud, according to the study.
...
The report, which uses data collected by other researchers and from the government, warns that the nation's fast-growing health care tab is consuming an ever-greater share of the America's overall economic resources. Health care will consume 15.5 percent of the U.S. economy this year, up from 13.2 percent in 2002, the study notes.
With these costs driving the real crisis before us in Medicare financing (not Social Security), a fundamental reform of our health care system is in order.
