Only in America are these companies permitted (encouraged?) to gouge consumers.
More than three dozen drug companies welcomed the new year with sweeping price hikes on hundreds of medicines, according to a new analysis from Rx Savings Solutions, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The drugs that saw list-price increases on January 1 ranged from generics and blood-pressure drugs to brand-name prescriptions such as the dry-eye treatment Restasis. The average price jump blew past inflation at 6.5 percent, with some medicines seeing double-digit increases—bucking many drug companies’ vows to keep such periodic hikes under 10 percent.
Despite public and political pressure on pharmaceutical companies to reign in soaring drug prices, Tuesday’s wide-ranging increases are no surprise. In December, Reuters reported that 28 drug makers had filed notifications with California agencies that they planned to raise drug prices. (A recently passed law in the Golden State requires drug makers to provide notification if they plan to raise US lists prices by more than 16 percent over a two-year period.)
“Requests and public shaming haven’t worked,” Michael Rea, chief executive of RX Savings Solutions, told Reuters at the time. His company helps health plans and employers seek lower-cost prescription medicines. “We expect the number of 2019 increases to be even greater than in past years.”
On a related note – only 5% of the world’s population, America consumers 80% of the world’s painkillers. It seems these drug companies are using at least some of the obscene profits for marketing.