PUSHER’S PAYDAY

Though promising to work with the White House to trim $80-billion off the national drug tab over the next decade once all the paperwork is signed, leading drug industry players have been prepping by quietly jacking their prices at the fastest rates since 1992.

Two unrelated analyses of the Big Pharma cartels have shown increases in brand-name drug prices averaging nine per cent, despite an overall downward trend in the cost of generics. The prices on more popular and newer drugs have increased even faster. University of Minnesota pharmaceutical economics professor Stephen Schondelmeyer, who studied drug pricing for the American Association of Retired Persons, says the inflated costs are directly related to the pending legislation—an opinion widely agreed with by most, excepting the pharmaceutical industry itself.

A spokesperson for Merck says their increases “have no connection to health care reform,” but offered no alternative explanation. Equally dismissive is the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America, who’d like more attention focused on their products’ ability to “help avoid costly medical procedures and increase productivity.”

by SCOTT SAXON