4 new things I learned about Big Pharma

 

Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) questions the CEO of Abbvie, a pharmaceutical company, about the massive amounts of money spent on stock buybacks and dividends while increasing drug prices during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Tuesday.

Big Pharma has been price gouging Americans for years, and a recent report by the Congressional Oversight Committee is bringing their greed to light. Here’s what we learned:

• Big Pharma has hiked up the price of a dozen drugs to be 250 times more expensive than they were a few years ago.
• Taxpayers are footing the bill for people’s overpriced prescriptions because Medicare isn’t allowed to negotiate drug prices. This costs taxpayers $25 billion over five years.
• Companies are using patient assistance programs (which are meant to help low income people afford their prescriptions) to squash competition and hook people on their drugs.
• The report found more evidence that Big Pharma’s claim that they need to charge astronomical prices to offset the cost of research and development is a myth.

Meanwhile, Big Pharma has spent more than $20 million on lobbying this year alone.

Congress needs to stand up to Big Pharma’s greed and pass legislation that will allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, limit what seniors spend on prescriptions, and recover taxpayer dollars when companies jack up prices faster than inflation.

I’ve never taken campaign contributions from Big Pharma, and never will.

Onward,

Katie Porter

 

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