Anybody else had enough of the AARP’s regular “Trends†reports on prescription drug pricing? I’d been tuning them out since the only difference from one report to the next was the date -- but Henry Waxman has reignited both my interest and my ire.
Let’s start with the actual report.
The first thing to note is that the AARP report relies on a measure of wholesale cost from a proprietary dataset – not the actual prices paid by cash customers. Patients with insurance (yes – like Part D) don’t ever see these prices. America’s insured focus their attention and anger on ever-rising co-pays (which increase many times-fold the price of the prescription medicines they are, in theory, linked to).
I think the folks over at Big Insurance (yes – like the AARP) have some ‘splaining to do.
Here's a link to the rest of the story ...
http://www.pharmexec.com/pharmexec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=382532
Let’s start with the actual report.
The first thing to note is that the AARP report relies on a measure of wholesale cost from a proprietary dataset – not the actual prices paid by cash customers. Patients with insurance (yes – like Part D) don’t ever see these prices. America’s insured focus their attention and anger on ever-rising co-pays (which increase many times-fold the price of the prescription medicines they are, in theory, linked to).
I think the folks over at Big Insurance (yes – like the AARP) have some ‘splaining to do.
Here's a link to the rest of the story ...
http://www.pharmexec.com/pharmexec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=382532
