The U.S. Senate gave consumers – along with doctors, hospitals, and Connecticut’s health insurers — a win by approving bipartisan legislation that would require “direct-to-consumer” advertising to include the price of the medications, which are among the costliest on the market.
PhRMA
Posted inHealth
Drug prices keep rising despite efforts to address problem
Some days, the inflammation and pain from rheumatoid arthritis makes it almost impossible for Tracy Braun to even sit up. “Sometimes I can’t even get up on my own,” she said. Braun is among a growing number of Americans who are finding it difficult to afford needed medicines, and a solution to their problem in Washington D.C. may continue to be elusive.
Posted inHealth
Drug-price transparency bill passes legislature with no dissent
A bill designed to help Connecticut officials peer into the black box of drug pricing won final approval from a unanimous state Senate early Wednesday, and will now go to the governor. Proponents of the measure called it a necessary first step toward curbing expensive prescription drug prices.
Posted inHealth
Lembo helps Dems in D.C. sharpen attack on high drug costs
In testimony Wednesday, Connecticut Comptroller Kevin Lembo joined a growing Democratic attack on high drug prices, an issue expected to be at the center of many Democratic election campaigns next year.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Small victories for liberals in trade pact they hate
WASHINGTON – News that the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations had finally reached agreement on a new trade deal was not good for opponents of the pact like Rep. Rosa DeLauro, yet liberals have won a few small victories in the deal.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Don’t blame medicines for higher health care costs
The insurance industry’s blame-everything-on-medicines rhetoric simply does not hold up to the facts. Just this week, the federal government projected that, even with new treatments for hepatitis C, high cholesterol and cancer, medicines will continue to account for just 10 percent of health care spending through the next decade, the same share as in 1960. It is time for a more balanced discussion of health care costs that moves beyond simple sound bites and political rhetoric and considers the big picture.