December 10, 2015 - Curant COO, Marc O'Connor, in Specialty Pharmacy Times - A case could be made that, overall, health care has not been a focal point of the respective political parties’ presidential nominee debates or campaigns. The discussion has been much, much more specific, focusing on drug manufacturers.
In mid-October, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders blithely placed biopharmaceutical manufacturers, drug manufacturers in their crosshairs, counting them among their “proudest enemies.” This is politically convenient, if not wise, in light of Turing Pharmaceutical’s debacle over its 5000% price hike on Daraprim.
Additional credence to this position comes from the October 2015 Kaiser Health Tracking Poll showing that the cost of prescription drugs has risen to the top of the list of health care issues the public believes the president and Congress should prioritize.
The report specifically states, “Making sure that high-cost drugs for chronic conditions, such as HIV, hepatitis, mental illness, and cancer, are affordable to those who need them is viewed as a top priority by 77% of the public and more than 7 in 10 across party lines, and at least half of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents say government action to lower prescription drug prices should be a top priority.”1
The report goes on to show that 62% of Americans believe there is not as much regulation limiting the price of prescription medications as there should be. Not surprisingly, Democrats on the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform formed the Affordable Drug Pricing Task Force in early November with the goal of enacting “meaningful action to combat the skyrocketing costs of pharmaceuticals.”
To read Marc's full article, visit Specialty Pharmacy Times.
To learn more about Curant Health, contact Kristin Lindsey, Marketing Director, at klindsey@curanthealth.com.