Analysis Of Big Pharma 's Power Over Congress

Imagine this: you are tragically diagnosed with a chronic life-threatening illness. Your only hope to survive is through medication to treat your disorder. The medicine is pricy but you can work out the costs each month. One day, you go to fill your prescriptions and realize the cost of a $13 pill has jumped to an astounding $750. You need this patented medication to survive and to afford it you end up losing your home, filing for bankruptcy, and sleeping in your car. This story sounds fictional but it is the reality for many Americans who can no longer afford their grossly overpriced medications.

The rise in drug prices is causing the public to ask why this is so and why there isn’t anything being done, or what the reason could be for sky high prices. Some of the reasons include pharmaceutical companies setting their drug prices

"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system are not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in

I think Big Pharma companies skew their data very regularly. Although this is not ethical, it's practiced in this field because there is a certain probability calculated as it relates to side effects and ineffectiveness. For instance when we take Tylenol as a child we eventually become tolerant to the dosage. As we get older we need to increase the dosage even more than is advertised to get relief. The Pharma companies do not advertise that ALL pills have a toxicity level and will affect our organs at some point in time. Each pill is tested for toxicity levels before being released to the public. With that said, these companies take on a certain amount of acceptable risk when producing medication. The public has accepted this risk with

According to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, the Affordable care Act from President Obama gives consumers more options and benefits when seeking coverage from insurance company. It offers lowering cost as well as gets more access to high quality of care. This law creates Patient’s Bill of Rights that is very effective to protect consumers from any abuses or fraud from insurance company. Some preventive services are available to many Americans especially Medicare recipients at no cost. Not just that, they also receive a special offer of 50 percent discount for any well-known drugs in the market place under Medicare named “donut hole.” The Affordable Care Act helps other organizations and programs to convince healthcare providers

Prescription drug prices are on the rise in the United States. Currently, the United States does not implement a price control on prescription drugs. Every day the supply and demand for prescription drugs fluctuates. Pharmaceutical companies produce drugs that are necessary for survival. Therefore, it is necessary for research and development to continue in the United States. Those suffering the effects of exorbitant prices must do so until a generic form of a prescription drug is produced. Once approved by the FDA, new drugs will make their appearance on the market and patients will no longer suffer financially. Until then, it is necessary for pharmaceutical companies to price their drugs based on the idea of supply and demand. This produces the profit used to fund research. Price controls discourage innovation. If a price control were set in place, of course the price of prescription drugs would decrease. However, the development of new drugs decreases with it. Today’s generation would benefit from lower prices, while future generations would suffer from the loss of drug innovation.

The bill was introduced by Senator Kohl (WI) due to the practice in which drug companies provide money to makers of generic medications to delay the introduction of certain generic medications (Policy and Medicine, 2011). The reason that the original maker of the drug would want to delay the production of a generic is that they make more money of they maintain exclusive rights to sell a certain medication. Unfortunately, the public ostensibly loses in this transaction because the drug company is not forced to reduce the price at which they sell the drug (Open Congress, 2012). This makes healthcare costs increase overall. The bill would save these costs to consumers as it would ensure that generic

The use of embryonic stem cells for research has been a controversial issue for many years. There have been benefits and risk toward the use of stem cells. The purpose of this paper is state the argument of both sides, how laws are brought into act, the position the state of Florida legislation has against using embryonic stems cells, how nurses can benefit being a health care policy advocate, and the position I chose in regards to fetal stem cell research.

“It is immoral for the drug companies to charge large sums for drugs that are cheap to manufacture.” Discuss

One person who worked with the interest groups that were involved with the interest included John McManus, a former government worker turned lobbyist. During the time of the initial drafting of this legislation, he was put in place as one who succeeded with others in reference to the policy development and negotiations that were associated with the bill (Pierce, 2009). It is these instances where aides and government workers boast their talents after the bill has passed. The significance of the Medicare Part D passing brought about a great flight of the same workers intending on moving to health care firms or establishing their own lobbying practices as McManus did after his departure.

As the business practices of the pharmaceutical industry become more public, formal complaints can be logged that will forces politician to take notice in order to appease the concerns of their constituents. For instance, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Vt) is a public supporter for the California Drug Price Relief act, (also known as proposition 61) written by Michael Weinstein and was on the California’s November ballot. This act identified that prescription drugs are the main reason for Californians increasing cost for healthcare. This act, if approved, would require negations with drug companies to set medication prices to be equivalent to the amounts paid for the same medications by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. The DAV is

The Pharmaceutical industry has been in the spotlight for decades due to the fact that they have a reputation for being unethical in its marketing strategies. In The Washington Post Shannon Brownlee (2008) states, “We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow.” This honorable statement is completely lost in today’s world of pharmaceutical marketing tactics. These tactics are often deceptive and biased. Big Pharma consistently forgets their moral purpose and focuses primarily on the almighty dollar. Big Pharma is working on restoring their reputation by reforming their ethical code of conduct.

On September 2nd 2011, a Twenty-four year old man from Cincinnati named Kyle Willis´ fell victim to the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry(Gann, Carrie). Willis had a severe toothache on his wisdom tooth that resulted in its extraction. After the surgery, Willis´s face started to swell and was sent to the emergency room. He was prescribed antibiotic medications and also painkillers in order to follow standard recovery procedure. Kyle Willis’ could not afford both drugs so he just purchased the pain killers because of the swelling unbearable pain. The infection continued to spread into his brain which lead to severe brain swelling and eventually Kyle Willis’ death. Kyle Willis’ died because he could not afford the medication that

Under special interest theory the justification for governmental intervention to reduce the prices of pharmaceutical agents is weak. Under the special interest theory the average citizen is not a major factor, instead powerful groups fight amongst themselves to use the coercive authority of the government to make rules and regulations that would better help their business objective. The government desire more monopsony power to lower its current prescription drug spending. However, special interest theory states that regulations are designed to benefit the regulated. If the government attempts to control the price of health care and intervene it fundamentally is doing so not to improve the profits of the pharmaceutical industry, but to reduce

Pfizer is known as one of the first and one of the world’s largest Pharmaceutical company that was establish in 1849. It was founded by two cousins called Charles Pfizer and Charles F. Erhart in New York City. Pfizer was as a manufacturer for fine chemicals but because of the discovery that was made in 1950 which made the company the path towards becoming the research-based pharmaceutical that it is update. The product that was first produced was the palatable form of sautonin which was used to treat intestinal worm. The Headquarters of Pfizer is located in New York City, with its research headquarters in Groton, Connecticut, which is nowadays the top multinational corporation that is sold all over the world. It is ranked as the second in the US and Japan market, and Novartis in first place and Roche in third place. The Pfizer Inc. is consisted with a trademark that is called PFIZER. Because of Pfizer’s strategies, Pfizer