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October 10th, 2015 
Awake Goy 
In 2008 when he was first running for president, then-Senator Barack
Obama of Illinois said he wanted to tackle the high cost of health care
in the United States. ~ JD Heyes
In 2009, his first year in office, he began
pushing legislation that would eventually – and not-so-endearingly – be
labeled “Obamacare,” a massive bill that the newly elected chief
executive promised would curb the growth of healthcare costs.
In
2010, when a Democrat majority passed the Affordable Care Act, Obama and
his congressional supporters swore that the new law would lower
healthcare expenditures and make it more affordable for more Americans.
That was then. Today, health care costs continue to soar, due in no small part to the dramatically rising prices of medicine.
Take one recent example…
A 5,000 percent price increase!!!
As reported by FiercePharma,
Turing Pharma recently purchased Daraprim, a standard-of-care
medication used in the treatment of toxoplasmosis infections in AIDS and
cancer patients.
Shortly after buying the drug, Turing CEO Martin
Shkreli took its price from $13.50 a tablet to a whopping $750 per pill.
“Price
gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous,” a tweet
from Democratic president contender Hillary Clinton said after Shkreli
announced the price hike. “Tomorrow I’ll lay out a plan to take it on.
-H “
As further noted by FiercePharma:
It’s not
the first example of a company buying in a drug and hiking the price by a
big margin.Valeant Pharmaceuticals is under Congressional
investigation for doing the same thing on CV meds Isuprel ($215 per vial
to $1,346 per) and Nitropress ($257.90 per vial to $805.61).Horizon
Pharma jacked up its price on the pain pill Vimovo by almost sixfold,
soon after buying the drug from AstraZeneca.And
Retrophin, where Shkreli served as CEO till he was tossed out by the
board earlier this year, did the same thing to Thiola, used to treat a
rare disease that causes kidney stones.The company took its monthly
cost from $135 to upward of $2,700.
So much for “affordable” health care.
Here’s
another amazing example of just how pricey it is getting to stay
healthy in the U.S. using non-natural medicines and treatments. Of
course, treating yourself naturally is much less expensive. When it becomes cheaper to pay your house payment than buy an antibiotic, something is definitely amiss.
As noted by The New York Times,
the long-enduring antibiotic doxycycline went from $20 a bottle (for 30
tabs) in October 2014 to an astounding $1,849 by April 2014. “Doxy”, as
it is nicknamed, was given to U.S. troops in Afghanistan to take daily
as a means of warding off sickness from anthrax.
Clinton opponent
Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has already introduced drug pricing
legislation. Sanders and Representative Elijah Cummings, D-Md., have
been investigating drug price gouging and are expected to release a
report later this year or early next.
This is “affordable healthcare?”
While
Obamacare was promised to Americans as a mechanism for holding down
medical costs, the law cannot compensate for Big Pharma companies
jacking up drug prices in a bid to boost bottom lines.
“Price
hikes are a widespread strategy for growing sales — just take a look at
the increases in diabetes drug prices; Eli Lilly’s Humulin went up by
325%, for instance, over the past five years,” FiercePharma reported.“Or any number of brand price increases, topped by Jazz Pharmaceuticals and Xyrem (841% over 5 years ending in 2013).”
Guys like Shkreli argue that the price hikes are necessary to fund research and development.
That
argument doesn’t wash anymore – not when drugs are priced so high that
they pay for there entire R&D budgets in less than two years.
As for Shkreli, he told The New York Times
that his company needed the extra revenue to fund R&D for a better
replacement drug for Daraprim. Interestingly, the physicians who spoke
to the Times said there’s no pressing need for one.
Here’s
something else to think about: if the government pledges to pay for
these drugs, even at a negotiated reduced rate, taxpayers are still
getting fleeced.
So much for that “cheaper healthcare” we were all promised.
October 7, 2015 – KnowTheLies.com
References
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