Health Alert 167
Just in case you forgot, today is April 15th, tax day. Speaking of taxes, this year we have, in effect, a new drug tax. As if drug prices were not already high enough, we will soon be paying a new tax that will further maintain drug company prices.
How inflated are prices? The popular blood pressure pill Norvasc costs $67.00 at the pharmacy next to my clinic. The ingredients cost the manufacturer $0.04. The overused antidepressant, Prozac has a markup of 455,400%. Our tax dollars pay for an artificially maintained monopoly by suppressing competition. As a result many of our seniors have to go without the medication their physicians prescribe.
Now we have a new government solution. Unfortunately it will also use our Medicare tax to support prescription drug prices. Today I’ll look at how this government solution will further stress Medicare, further reduce the affordability of natural alternatives and make the drug companies even richer.
* The Medicare Drug Funding Proposal *
Although everyone can agree there is a healthcare crisis fueled by over-inflated prescription drug prices, I disagree with Congress on the best way to remedy it. The majority of congress voted that the Medicare tax should pay for drugs without negotiating price.1
The problem with funding the cost of drugs with tax money is the inherent waste and the lack of checks and balances. Without negotiating price and using tax dollars to pay those prices maintained by FDA enforcement it will only further stifle free market competition.
Another problem is that nutrients are not covered unless they are packaged and sold as prescription drugs. This rarely occurs because drug companies can not maintain a monopoly on natural substances. This forcing seniors to use drugs or foot the bill on their own is bad public policy. But it gets worse.
When a drug company does package a nutrient, Medicare is not allowed, under the bill to negotiate fair market price. For instance, N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) is a nutrient that helps pulmonary diseases. The free market price for 1 gram of NAC is $0.40. Medicare reimburses $5.05 for the same 1 gram of NAC.2
It doesn’t take an economics guru to figure out that this type of pricing disparity will cost Medicare. What benefit will we have to eliminate to maintain high drug prices? It will leave future generations without the benefit they were forced to pay into.
The Life Extension Foundation has organized grass-roots efforts to try to challenge the FDA’s authority and interference. I admire their commitment. But it has come at a great price. They have endured countless raids, even a lawsuit.
So why does this go on? It is a result of the very powerful drug lobby and the incestuous relation between the FDA and the drug companies. Part of the FDA’s payroll is funded by the big pharma-cartel. The FDA is so dependent on the drug companies that their jobs depend on these huge margins.
This dependency of our public watchdogs on the profit driven industry they police could have been predicted to produce results like these. One of my patients said, “The best health plan is to stay healthy.” It will be the commitment of your Health Alert service to do help you do just that and avoid this mess as much as possible.
Al Sears, MD