Pharmaceutical corporations and private health insurers spent $171 million on lobbying through the first nine months of the year, the most of any industry. Big Pharma’s 1,600 lobbyists outnumber members of Congress by a ratio of three to one. The industry’s focus on drug pricing has increased dramatically in recent years as the issue became more top-of-mind for voters. In 2012, lobbyists registered to work on the issue of ‘drug prices’ 69 times for 20 different clients. In 2021 so far, they have filed to lobby on the issue 1,192 times for 242 different clients. Despite the fact that 83% of U.S. adults want the federal government to reduce the costs of medications, for which Americans pay two to four times more than people in other countries, the provision that would have authorized Medicare to do so was briefly removed due to the intransigence of a handful of right-wing Democrats bankrolled by Big Pharma. Recent research, however, shows that prescription drug costs have been soaring, with list prices increasing by 159% from 2007 to 2018.
According to the Council for Informed Drug Spending Analysis (CIDSA), allowing Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical corporations could prevent nearly 94,000 deaths per year while also reducing Medicare spending by almost $476 billion by 2030.
— source commondreams.org | Nov 5, 2021
