{"id":238090,"date":"2016-04-15T13:00:53","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T13:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=238090"},"modified":"2016-04-15T13:00:53","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T13:00:53","slug":"more-startling-evidence-that-big-pharma-corps-are-ripping-off-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/more-startling-evidence-that-big-pharma-corps-are-ripping-off-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"More startling evidence that big pharma corps are ripping-off Americans\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>Even as Prescription Drug Volume Stagnates, Prices Soar.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Total US spending on prescription drugs in 2015, at the manufacturers\u2019\u00a0level and as measured by \u201cinvoice pricing,\u201d jumped by 12.2% to $424.8 billion, after having already soared 14.2% in 2014! A two-year increase of 28%!<\/p>\n<p>So you\u2019d think we\u2019d get some results for all this moolah. But no.<\/p>\n<p>Life expectancy in the US, at 78.7 years at birth, ranks between 34th and 52nd place globally, depending on <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy\" target=\"_blank\">who does the counting<\/a>, wedged somewhere between Bahrain and Cuba, and about 5 years below the top. Among <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldlifeexpectancy.com\/usa\/life-expectancy\" target=\"_blank\">US states<\/a>, life expectancy ranges from 81.3 years in Hawaii or 80.8 years in California to 74.9 years in Mississippi. It\u2019s bad. But we handed Big Pharma a ballooning amount of money to get there.<\/p>\n<p>This $424.8 billion in prescription drug spending at \u201cinvoice pricing\u201d isn\u2019t based on what Americans or their health insurers pay. According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imshealth.com\/en\/thought-leadership\/ims-institute\/reports\/medicines-use-and-spending-in-the-us-a-review-of-2015-and-outlook-to-2020\" target=\"_blank\">IMS Health<\/a>, which released the report, it reflects invoice pricing by drug companies to distributors. It includes neither price concessions by drug companies nor the \u201cmark-ups and additional costs\u201d before these drugs get to patients.<\/p>\n<p>Another metric is \u201cnet price spending.\u201d It\u2019s based on the same wholesale prices but after \u201crebates, off-invoice discounts, and other price concessions made by manufacturers to distributors, health plans, and intermediaries.\u201d And it jumped by 8.5% to $309.5 billion.<\/p>\n<p>And then there\u2019s what IMS Health calls \u201caverage patient cost exposure,\u201d which is what Americans pay, including copays and deductibles. We\u2019ll get to that in a moment.<\/p>\n<p>Read more: <em><a href=\"http:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2016\/04\/14\/big-pharma-drug-prices-soar-volume-stagnates-best-way-to-wreck-consumers\/\">Big Pharma Trips Over the Maxed-out American Consumer<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even as Prescription Drug Volume Stagnates, Prices Soar. Total US spending on prescription drugs in 2015, at the manufacturers\u2019\u00a0level and as measured by \u201cinvoice pricing,\u201d jumped by 12.2% to $424.8 billion, after having already soared 14.2% in 2014! A two-year increase of 28%! So you\u2019d think we\u2019d get some results for all this moolah. But [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":177244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,955,52,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-238090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-health","9":"category-money","10":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}