Just searched the Senate Healthcare bill for these terms:
- cost control
- cost reduction
- cost management
- competitive bid
- cost discipline
- price reduction
- price management
- price control
Guess what? None of these terms appear in the bill.
For whatever reasons (the power of lobbyists?), no one is acknowledging the 8000lb elephant in the room. Medicare is prevented by law from negotiating drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies. EVERY other government contract goes thru a competitive bidding process to get the best prices. Why not this one? Every other country in the world negotiates drug prices with the suppliers. It's why drugs are so much cheaper in Canada, Europe, Asia, etc.
So, thanks to the greed of big Pharma, and the willingness of Congress to go along with it, the American public is getting screwed big time. And the result is a lot of Americans are given a demoralizing choice - Suffer either economically or suffer medically. Take your pick.
Maybe I should write an article and shop it out to see if anyone is willing to publish it. Probably not, because many of the business magazines I've dealt with get significant advertising from big pharma. They won't jeopardize that revenue stream. And you won't hear anything from main stream media either. Watch the 5:30 news. 75% of the ads are for pharmaceuticals. Main stream media won't jeopardize the revenue either. The only publications willing to tackle this are AARP and Consumer Reports. Notice there are no drug ads in AARP publications. Big pharma hates them. And Consumer Reports doesn't accept advertising $$$ from anyone to remain unbiased.
Big pharma has everyone by the balls - congress, Medicare, the media, and American citizens. And most have no clue.