tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14493401360437001262024-02-22T16:07:19.172-06:00RxforAmericanHealthMaking the case for personal importation of safe, affordable prescription medicines from licensed, registered pharmacies in Tier One Countries. Rx for American Health is published by Daniel Hines, an international award-winning communicator with five decades of experience, and the publisher of www.TodaysSeniorsNetwork.com and www.BoomersNewsOnline.com. He also works with progressive senior advocacy groups across the nation to promote the health and well-being of America’s aging population.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.comBlogger188125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-57643053130846820712017-06-18T09:40:00.000-05:002017-06-18T09:41:57.858-05:00Publisher of RxforAmericanHealth urges President to Stand up to Pharma, take a stand for American Patients’ Health<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx44u4KHkPese9FKn9PSzVqUZHc0R4bBT7yOg9mAMEMUamAUQmJZz2kXuS2xIJMtDMzW_rttm5zdpDapX20tB9HdnARVlchk76VeFKWuBTMt1RHuT6FmHMP4IHI6zwJ-EH6bwl2EObP9qq/s1600/rxforamericanhealth+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="640" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx44u4KHkPese9FKn9PSzVqUZHc0R4bBT7yOg9mAMEMUamAUQmJZz2kXuS2xIJMtDMzW_rttm5zdpDapX20tB9HdnARVlchk76VeFKWuBTMt1RHuT6FmHMP4IHI6zwJ-EH6bwl2EObP9qq/s400/rxforamericanhealth+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>President Trump urged to end opportunity for Pharma to extend control of drug prices, prescription medicine policy in US</i> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">ST. LOUIS, MO, USA, June 19, 2017 /<a href="http://www.einpresswire.com/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">EINPresswire.com</a>/ -- The publisher of the <a href="http://www.todaysseniorsnetwork.com/" rel="external nofollow" target="_blank">TodaysSeniorsNetwork</a> chain of advocacy websites, including TodaysSeniorsNetwork, <a href="http://rxforamericanhealth.blogspot.com/" rel="external nofollow" target="_blank">RxforAmericanHealth</a> and <a href="http://americanrxbillofrights.blogspot.com/" rel="external nofollow" target="_blank">AmericanRxBillofRights</a>,
has urged President Donald Trump to “stand up for Americans’ health by
standing up to Pharma” with the issuance of his plans to issue an
executive order to lower drug prices.<br />
<br />
Daniel Hines says that the President should implement such policies as
personal importation of brand-name medicines form licensed registered
pharmacies in Tier One countries whose standards of safety and efficacy
meet or exceed those of the U.S., price negotiation for Medicare,
reciprocal agreements with regulatory agencies in Tier One Countries to
ensure medicines meet standards of safety, and rules to ensure pricing
transparency by Pharma.<br />
<br />
“During the election, and since taking office, the President has, on the
one hand, attacked the predatory pricing practices of Pharma, while
continuing to meet with pharmaceutical representatives, making
appointments of key policy makers such as Healthy and Human Services
Secretary Tom Price, and FDA Commission Scott Gottlieb, both of whom
disdain such readily available relief from high prices as price
negotiation and personal importation of medicines,” says Daniel Hines.<br />
<br />
“That is why, after the initial rush of optimism about the President’s
decision to issue executive orders to lower drug prices, news stories
that the President’s actions would favor Pharma are troubling and would,
if factual, continue to deny patients access to the vital lifeline of
maintenance medicines that help ensure the continued health and
well-being of Americans, leading to even more serious health issues that
can only be addressed by catastrophically priced drugs and treatments
that are beyond the reach of the overwhelming majority of Americans.”<br />
<br />
In a blog on RxforAmericanHealth, Hines offers insights into a ‘chain of
events’ that has allowed Pharma to “thumb its collective nose” to the
American public and the U.S. Congress, explaining that:<br />
<br />
“For more than a quarter-century, Americans have been victims of the predatory pricing practices of Pharma. <br />
• Americans pay the highest prescription prices in the industrial world<br />
• This is based upon a national policy of allowing the industry to ‘charge what the traffic will bear’<br />
• The Pharmaceutical Industry has created alliances, influenced
governmental policy, colluded with regulatory agencies designed to
ensure prices are unaffordable, and literally ‘bought’ the U.S. Congress
with the most contributions of any industry segment in the U.S.<br />
<br />
• Result #1—A denial for an estimated 55 million Americans to be able to
exercise their right to the health benefit made possible from access to
a regimen of vital life-line medicines, simply because they are
unaffordable;<br />
• Result # 2—The ‘hoped-for’ answer to the scourge of unaffordable
medicines—generic medicines—has seen price spikes that have made many of
them equally unavailable to American patients;<br />
• Result # 3—Literally millions of Americans suffer from diseases—many
of them life-threatening—raising the question of a possible link to the
cause-effect impact of unaffordable but vital maintenance medicines that
could have benefitted patients and deterred the harmful effects of
their disease;<br />
• Result # 4—Pharma raises prices on specialty medicines to thousands of
dollars for treatments, even though many of the costly medicines are
older, lower-cost medicines, and manufacturers are simply taking
advantage of the illness of Americans;<br />
• Result # 5—Congress becomes indignant, holds hearings, witness
testify, advocacy groups coalesce to ‘address’ price challenges, but
prices remain high, Congress continues with more hearings…and Americans
continue to pay the highest prices in the world…WHY?<br />
• RESULT #6--Because Pharma and its allies in the House of
Representatives and the U.S. Senate who are the beneficiaries of
Pharma’s extensive contributions have controlled the discussion on how
to lower prescription and health care costs while Pharma continues to
rake in obscene profits, and American patients continue to be denied
their medicines.<br />
<br />
“This is more than unfortunate, it is tragic because it illustrates what
can only be considered the politicization of an important American
healthcare issues, e.g., the beneficial impact upon the health and
well-being of American patients from access to adherence to a regimen of
authentic prescription medicines,” Hines explains.<br />
<br />
He notes that the estimates vary, but the undeniable fact is that
millions of American patients forego such adherence simply because the
medicines themselves are so high-priced that they are unaffordable,
making them, in and of themselves, unavailable.<br />
“We are faced with the spectacle of an ineffective response from
Congress, which continues to offer narrowly defined proposals ranging
from personal importation to transparency to more generics to penalties
for Pharma price gouging, and conducting time-consuming hearings that
result in nothing, while Pharma continues to thumb its collective nose
to the American people and sets prices beyond the reach of patients,”
Hines continues.<br />
<br />
“At the same time, a score of group and organizations issue periodic
statements, collective letters and develop positions that address the
costs and availability of medicines that cost thousands of dollars, all
the while ignoring the fact that these commendable efforts are not
mutually exclusive from the inclusion as part of recognition of the
harmful impact of lack of access to any medicine, and that an
unaffordable maintenance medicine is just as unavailable to untold
numbers of patients as a medicine that costs $120,000 a year.<br />
<br />
“It is time for a change! American patients can’t wait any longer!,”
Hines says. “It is incumbent upon President Trump to take decisive
actions that will stand up to Pharma and for the American patient.”</span><br />
<div class="contact" style="margin: 1em 0px;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Daniel Hines<br />
TodaysSeniorsNetwork<br />
636-399-2849</span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.einpresswire.com/contact_author/387442630" rel="nofollow">email us here</a></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-27481764482081314892017-06-17T16:02:00.000-05:002017-06-17T16:02:15.998-05:00Making the case for Personal Importation as a tool to lower drug costs—an open appeal to President Trump as he formulates executive orders
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4ZdW1GwX7lSqhDuRIseQGQlP4sEBreWearRyo_lMKbmeWlGeHL0f4tA7R4w4VGBlZkMC86bKChhDkHYUoQ28Zc5dy1eiwn-Ycv3FG218pL9LfZ1-2aP8gssb4-uk1Lr4H9htHWgYeIo4/s1600/white+house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="515" data-original-width="450" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4ZdW1GwX7lSqhDuRIseQGQlP4sEBreWearRyo_lMKbmeWlGeHL0f4tA7R4w4VGBlZkMC86bKChhDkHYUoQ28Zc5dy1eiwn-Ycv3FG218pL9LfZ1-2aP8gssb4-uk1Lr4H9htHWgYeIo4/s400/white+house.jpg" width="348" /></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">(Part 1 of 2-parts: )</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">President Donald Trump, whose administration has been
hamstrung in keeping one of his most significant campaign pledges—to lower the
cost of prescription medicines--, now has apparently decided to take the course
of issuing executive orders to end the tragedy <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>that continues to plague American patients,
namely living in the country with the highest costs prescription medicines of
any industrialized nation in the world and being denied access to vital
medicines.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">We have issued news releases and blogs urging that the
President take such action, and move it out of the purview of members of the
U.S. Congress who receive millions of dollars from Pharma in campaign
contributions.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">At the same time, we believe the President must accept some of
the burden of the blame for the inaction.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>He has appointed a Health and Human Services Secretary, former
Representative Tom Price, who is decidedly pro-Pharma, and who, many believe,
even profited from stock purchases of a Pharma stock that increased
tremendously in value based upon inside knowledge.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Also, the President’s appointee (Scott Gottlieb) as
Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), apparently believes
that the ‘free market’ is the primary tool to lower the costs of over-priced
medicines, and opposes personal importation of safe, affordable brand-name
medicines from licensed, registered pharmacies in Tier One Countries whose
standards of safety and efficacy meet or exceed those of the U.S. He also
opposes negotiation by the government with Pharma, choosing instead to look to
stepped-up introduction of generics as the primary route to lowering the costs
of medicines.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">As for Congress, it continues to stumble along with plan after
plan, proposed legislation, including the fatally flawed S. 469, hailed by many
Democrats as the save-all concept to lower prescription drug costs.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The bill is based upon an equally flawed
effort of 2003 when it was first introduced. The legislation has already raised
vigorous opposition among groups not only in the U.S. but also in Canada
because it would impose U.S. oversight on Canadian-based operations such as
provincial licensing authorities in Canada, and even Health Canada.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">This is more than unfortunate, it is tragic because it
illustrates what can only be considered the politicalization of an important
American healthcare issues, e.g., the beneficial impact upon the health and
well-being of American patients from access to adherence to a regimen of
authentic prescription medicines.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">The estimates vary, but the undeniable fact is that millions
of American patients forego such adherence simply because the medicines
themselves are so high-priced that they are unaffordable, making them, in and
of themselves, unavailable.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">While we are faced with the spectacle of an ineffective
response from Congress, which continues to offer narrowly defined proposals
ranging from personal importation to transparency to more generics to penalties
for Pharma price gouging , and conducting time-consuming hearings that result
in nothing, while Pharma continues to thumb its collective nose to the American
people and set prices beyond the reach of patients.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">At the same time, a score of group and organizations issue
periodic statements, collective letters and develop positions that address the
costs and availability of medicines that costs thousands of dollars, all the
while ignoring the fact that these commendable efforts are not mutually
exclusive from the inclusion as part of recognition of the harmful impact of
lack of access to any medicine, and that an unaffordable maintenance medicine
is just as unavailable to untold numbers of patients<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>as a medicine that costs $120,000 a year.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">As an advocate for role for Personal Importation of brand-name
prescription medicines, and as a supporter of a comprehensive approach to
address all elements of the negative impact of Pharma pricing abuses, and the
rapidly evolving record of abuses by huge pharmacy benefit managers, I believe it
is tragic that the discussion about the costs and availability of any medicine
has become so highly segmented.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">That is why it is incumbent upon the President to provide<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>leadership by creating policies that will
result in a truly comprehensive solution with personal importation being
recognized as not only a part of his strategies, but as the only offering a
degree of immediate relief to the dilemma of 55 million Americans not being
able to afford their medications.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">While many of the challenges of new medicines, value, and
prices will be met in the future, the fact is that personal importation is a
readily, safe available strategy that has already been embraced by millions of
Americans, and has received support from policy-makers at local, state and
Federal levels, even in the face of Pharma opposition and Congressional
inaction! </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Why then, has the personal importation of safe, brand-name
medicines from licensed registered pharmacies in Tier One Countries whose standards
of safety and efficacy meet or exceed those of the U.S. not become a part of
the solution when an examination of the facts makes the case for such a
strategy from to allow personal importation of prescription and offer benefits
to the health and well-being of Americans. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">For more than a quarter-century, Americans have been victims
of the predatory pricing practices of Pharma.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">•<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Americans pay the highest prescription prices in
the industrial world</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">•<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">This is based upon a national policy of allowing
the industry to ‘charge what the traffic will bear’</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">•<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">The Pharmaceutical Industry has created alliances,
influenced governmental policy, colluded with regulatory agencies designed to
ensure prices are affordable, and literally ‘bought’ overwhelmed the U.S.
Congress with the most contributions of any industry segment in the U.S.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">•<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Result #1—A denial for an estimated 55 million
Americans to be able to exercise their right to the health benefit made
possible from access to a regimen of vital life-line medicines, simply because
they are unaffordable</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">•<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Result # 2—The ‘hoped-for’ answer to the scourge
of unaffordable medicines—generic medicines—have seen price spikes that have
made many of them equally unavailable to American patients.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">•<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Result # 3—Literally millions of Americans suffer
from diseases—many of them life-threatening—raising the question of a possible
link to the cause-effect impact of unaffordable but vital maintenance medicines
that could have benefitted patients<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>and
deterred the harmful effects of their disease.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">•<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Result # 4—Pharma raises prices, on specialty
medicines to thousands of dollars for treatments, even though many of the
costly medicines are older, lower-cost medicines, and manufacturers are simply
taking advantage of the illness of Americans.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">•<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Result # 5—Congress becomes indignant, holds
hearings, witness testify, advocacy groups coalesce to ‘address’ price
challenges, but…prices remain high, Congress continues with more hearings…and
Americans continue to pay the highest prices in the world…WHY?</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px 48px; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">•<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">RESULT #6--Because Pharma and its allies in the
House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate who are the beneficiaries of
Pharma’s extensive contributions have controlled the discussion on how to lower
prescription and health care costs while Pharma continues to rake in obscene
profits, and American patients continue to be denied their medicines.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13px;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">It is time for a change!<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>American patients can’t wait any longer!</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-507675058472584092017-06-06T10:10:00.000-05:002017-06-06T10:10:24.456-05:00Comp leaders warn against misuse of drug compounding<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">June 6, 2017--Workers compensation leaders say the common practice of
compounding medications for injured workers can be costly and dangerous if not
done appropriately and is not guided by regulation, according to a paper
released by CompPharma, L.L.C. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">CompPharma, a consortium of workers compensation pharmacy
benefit managers, analyzed compounding for its paper “Compounds in Comp: A New
Look at Patient Safety, Efficacy and Cost” to “clear up confusion surrounding
compounding medications in workers’ compensation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It clarifies research on the efficacy of compounds and
explores how a pricing benchmark that was never intended to be applied to
pharmaceutical grade chemicals has been manipulated to drive compounding prices
and profits,” according to the text. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In it, authors wrote they support traditional compounding,
which FDA defines as “the extemporaneous combining, mixing or altering of
ingredients by a pharmacist in response to a physician’s prescription to create
a medication tailored to the specialized needs of an individual patient.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yet much compounding in workers’ compensation involves
creating a compounded product, marketing it to prescribers and billing
“exorbitant prices,” according to the authors. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The paper also shows how the average wholesale price benchmark
— the universal benchmark for prescription drug reimbursement in the United
States today — has been manipulated to “drastically inflate compound prices and
outlines state legislative and regulatory controls.” It is also a practice that
can be wrought with fraud, according to the authors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Not only is cost an issue but so is safety, according to lead
author Phil Walls, Tampa, Florida-based chief clinical officer for pharmacy
benefit manager Matrix Healthcare Services Inc., which does business as
myMatrixx.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Exposure to high concentrations of local anesthetics found in
some compounded creams can cause seizures and irregular heartbeats, and there
have been deaths associated with their use,” he said in a statement.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-31083770090769441742017-05-18T12:52:00.000-05:002017-05-18T12:52:58.455-05:00Klobuchar, McCain, Grassley Urge OMB Director Mulvaney to Use Existing Executive Authority to Bring Down Prescription Drug Costs<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7nSVq_1m4WbzYnKfkys0zxyVxE25d87DC0jrfM_9NEA9xXmbLKbsFjkOMesVvCG5AouFsCUCrsaV6Gn4UPEas18y9v-Qc1BQicvRVx5wb61WzevBXF6nU8iWvL5TAmRDAbYHOn6J1SzhF/s1600/capitol.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7nSVq_1m4WbzYnKfkys0zxyVxE25d87DC0jrfM_9NEA9xXmbLKbsFjkOMesVvCG5AouFsCUCrsaV6Gn4UPEas18y9v-Qc1BQicvRVx5wb61WzevBXF6nU8iWvL5TAmRDAbYHOn6J1SzhF/s400/capitol.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">In a letter to Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mulvaney, Klobuchar, McCain, and Grassley
encourage executive or administrative action to reduce the ever-increasing
financial burden of prescription drugs for millions of Americans</span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Klobuchar, McCain, and
Grassley have worked together on bipartisan legislation that would address
skyrocketing prescription drug prices, including bills to allow for personal
importation of medications from Canada and bills that would deter pharmaceutical
companies from blocking cheaper generic alternatives from entering the
marketplace</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Amy
Klobuchar (D-MN), John McCain (R-AZ), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) have urged
Office of Management (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney to use existing executive
authority to bring down prescription drug costs, including by certifying
importation of prescription drugs from Canada. According to media reports,
Mulvaney said last week that he has been actively discussing potential
executive or administrative solutions with the President to address rising
prescription drug costs. Additionally, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom
Price has been holding “listening sessions” to discuss possible solutions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Klobuchar, McCain, and Grassley have
also worked together on bipartisan legislation that would address skyrocketing
drug prices, including bills to allow for personal importation of medications
from Canada, where drug prices are, on average, half the cost they are in the
United States, and bills that would deter pharmaceutical companies from
blocking generic alternatives from entering the marketplace. In their letter,
Klobuchar, McCain, and Grassley detail how the Administration could use
executive or administrative action to reduce the ever-increasing financial
burden of prescription drugs for millions of Americans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“According to media reports, you
said on Thursday that you have been actively discussing potential executive or
administrative solutions with the President to address rising prescription drug
costs. Similarly, Secretary Price has been holding ‘listening sessions’ to
discuss possible solutions. We write to express our support for such efforts
that could provide immediate relief to Americans,” the senators wrote. “Consistent
with your comments last week, the Administration has an opportunity to use
existing statutory authority to quickly restore competition to the market with
the introduction of cheaper, imported alternatives.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The senators continued, “We urge you
to seriously consider this existing statutory authority as well as explore
other options for executive action. We also ask that you please provide your
recommendations as to what additional authority you would require to protect
American consumers. Of course, we would welcome your support of our legislation
to bring down the costs of prescription drugs as well.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Klobuchar and McCain introduced the <i>Safe
and Affordable Drugs from Canada Act</i> to require the Food and Drug
Administration to establish a personal importation program that would allow
individuals to import a 90-day supply of prescription drugs from an approved
Canadian pharmacy. The bipartisan <i>Preserve Access to Affordable Generics Act</i>
Klobuchar and Grassley introduced would crack down on anti-competitive
“pay-for-delay” deals in which branded companies pay their generic competitors
not to compete as part of a patent settlement. These pay-for-delay agreements
delay consumer access to generic drugs, which can be as much as 90 percent
cheaper than brand-name drugs. The legislation would help make sure consumers
have access to the cost saving generics they need by stopping these
anti-competitive pay-off agreements that keep more affordable generic
equivalents off the market. In addition, Klobuchar and Grassley introduced the <i>Creating
and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples (CREATES) Act </i>with
Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Mike Lee (R-UT).
The <i>CREATES Act</i> would combat anticompetitive practices used by some
brand-name pharmaceutical and biologic companies to block or delay entry of
lower-cost generic drugs in the marketplace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The full text of the senators’
letter is below. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Dear Director Mulvaney:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">According to media reports, you said
on Thursday that you have been actively discussing potential executive or
administrative solutions with the President to address rising prescription drug
costs. Similarly, Secretary Price has been holding “listening sessions” to
discuss possible solutions. We write to express our support for such efforts
that could provide immediate relief to Americans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">We have worked together on
bipartisan legislation that would address skyrocketing drug prices, including
bills to allow for personal importation of medications from Canada, where drug
prices are, on average, half the cost they are in the United States, and bills
that would deter pharmaceutical companies from blocking cheaper generic
alternatives from entering the marketplace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">While we pursue these legislative
options in Congress, we strongly encourage you to take executive or
administrative action to reduce the ever-increasing financial burden of
prescription drugs for millions of Americans. We have previously outlined ways
that the Administration could implement such strategies in a targeted manner
that satisfies rigorous safety standards. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Specifically, we wrote to Secretary
Price in February urging him to utilize authority the Administration already
has under law. Our letter highlighted that Congress enacted legislation in 2003
that would enable importation of less costly medications from abroad. Under
this law, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can permit pharmacists and
wholesale retailers to import prescription drugs from Canada. Additionally, the
FDA can issue a waiver to allow individuals to import prescription drugs for
personal use. However, this law stipulates that the provisions related to
importation do not become effective until the Secretary of Health and Human
Services certifies that the implementation of importation would pose no
additional risk to the public's health and safety and would result in a
significant reduction in the cost of covered products to the American consumer.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Consistent with your comments last
week, the Administration has an opportunity to use existing statutory authority
to quickly restore competition to the market with the introduction of cheaper,
imported alternatives. Under the statute, the Secretary has the authority to
issue the certification in a targeted manner to address the current market conditions
in a way that readily meets safety standards. The policy can also be expressly
limited so that it does not negatively affect innovator companies that invested
in the development of the drug. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">We urge you to work with Secretary
Price to immediately begin considering certifying importation of prescription
drugs from Canada in the following circumstances:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">1.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The drug is off patent
or no longer marketed in the United States by the innovator company that
initially developed the drug;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">2.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">In cases where there are
significant and unexplained increases in price;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">3.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">No direct competitor
drug is currently in the market and introduction of a competitor drug will
benefit the prices paid by taxpayers and consumers; or<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">4.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The drug is produced in
another country by the name brad manufacturer that initially developed the drug
or by a well-known generic manufacturer that commonly sells pharmaceutical
products in the United States. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">We urge you to seriously consider
this existing statutory authority as well as explore other options for
executive action. We also ask that you please provide your recommendations as
to what additional authority you would require to protect American consumers.
Of course, we would welcome your support of our legislation to bring down the
costs of prescription drugs as well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">We look forward to your timely
response to this request.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-1641317062055881462017-05-17T09:53:00.000-05:002017-05-17T09:53:23.817-05:00Grassley, Klobuchar, Gardner Introduce Legislation to Help Rural Hospitals Stay Open, Focus on Emergency Room Care, Outpatient Services <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsraCazCSsEAJTeA8iCxV3RvDPZKueUnXydjMmQAPO1HUWQ-cSFzkwqFXXYHsfWvHOSkujh1GZY1U298q5tR7hVyrFdQREZAq69Sc1xTCJiJzPuBeUefTQcaAUfx-PmbSXJbhXugRR8bQY/s1600/rural+america.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsraCazCSsEAJTeA8iCxV3RvDPZKueUnXydjMmQAPO1HUWQ-cSFzkwqFXXYHsfWvHOSkujh1GZY1U298q5tR7hVyrFdQREZAq69Sc1xTCJiJzPuBeUefTQcaAUfx-PmbSXJbhXugRR8bQY/s400/rural+america.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">WASHINGTON, May 17, 2017 – Sen.
Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sen. Cory Gardner
of Colorado today re-introduced legislation to help rural hospitals stay open
while meeting the needs of rural residents for emergency room care and
outpatient services. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“A car accident or a heart attack is
dangerous under the best of circumstances, but it’s a lot more dangerous for
someone who’s far away from an emergency room,” Grassley said. “When a
rural hospital closes, its emergency room closes with it. This proposal will
fill a pressing need, help keep hospital doors open, and offer hospital
services where and when people need them most.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“Our rural hospitals are essential
institutions in communities across Minnesota. They don’t just provide vital
health services, they employ thousands of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and
other health care workers,” Klobuchar said. “Millions of people depend on
keeping these hospitals open. Our bipartisan legislation will help ensure that
rural Minnesotans and Americans across the country have access to medical care
when and where they need it most.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">“Coloradans living in rural
communities should not be denied access to healthcare simply because they do
not live in a large metropolitan area,” Gardner said. “This commonsense,
bipartisan legislation provides rural hospitals an option to continue providing
emergency services to rural America even if they do not meet Medicare’s
criteria for inpatient beds. During an emergency, time is of the essence, and
it is critical that we maintain access to life-saving treatment regardless of
your zip code.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The senators noted that 60 percent
of trauma deaths in the United States occur in rural areas, where only 15
percent of the population is represented. The pace of rural hospital
closures is accelerating, and many other hospitals that haven’t closed are
struggling to keep their doors open. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Under Medicare, many rural hospitals
are designated as Critical Access Hospitals, meaning they have to maintain a
certain amount of inpatient beds as well as an emergency room. Many
hospitals struggle to attract enough inpatients to keep their Critical Access
Hospital status. When they close their doors, it often means a community
loses its emergency services. Studies show that proximity to an emergency
room often means the difference between life and death. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The senators’ bipartisan bill, the <i>Rural
Emergency Acute Care Hospital (REACH) Act</i>, would create a new Rural
Emergency Hospital classification under Medicare. The hospital would have
an emergency room and outpatient services. It would not have the
inpatient beds that many hospitals are struggling to maintain. For
example, a patient in a rural hospital with kidney disease might go to his
community hospital for dialysis as an outpatient service. He would go to
a separate major hospital for specialized care such as a kidney
operation. He would go to his community hospital for emergency care for
an acute episode, when time is of the essence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The bill wouldn’t force any new
requirements on hospitals. It simply would offer them a new option. The
hospitals would have to maintain some protocols in exchange for removing
inpatient services, such as being able to rapidly move a patient to a larger
hospital elsewhere that offers more services.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The bill text is available <a href="https://www.grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/constituents/REACH%20Act%20text.pdf">here</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-10977186110536565552017-05-01T12:34:00.000-05:002017-05-01T12:34:36.311-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<h4>
<span style="font-size: large;">Kaiser Poll: Majorities of Democrats, Republicans and Independents Support Actions to Lower Drug Costs, Including Allowing Americans to Buy Drugs from Canada</span></h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNAI2ujxL7lt_yL_57c3Fp2VAHlGNVJ1SCyznwNlJKL9hP0v9PuTj3Ie87dlxyciDSUo7tTAOzaK8ewriO1SBMOu5IxxwUXGZNPlAAGM9401L2SsQZA1YBinvVAodvm-R4ED1JM-rwb9pa/s1600/medicine+pills+%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNAI2ujxL7lt_yL_57c3Fp2VAHlGNVJ1SCyznwNlJKL9hP0v9PuTj3Ie87dlxyciDSUo7tTAOzaK8ewriO1SBMOu5IxxwUXGZNPlAAGM9401L2SsQZA1YBinvVAodvm-R4ED1JM-rwb9pa/s400/medicine+pills+%25282%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Most Say Importing Canadian Drugs
Would Lower Costs Without Affecting Quality, Though Some Have Concerns About
Unsafe Drugs and Disincentives for Research and Development</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">May 01, 2017--</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When
asked about a series of health care priorities facing President Trump and
Congress, six in 10 Americans (60%) identify lowering the cost of prescription
drugs as a “top priority” for President Trump and Congress – including
majorities of Democrats, independents, and Republicans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://kff.org/report-section/kaiser-health-tracking-poll-late-april-2017-the-future-of-the-aca-and-health-care-the-budget-rx-drugs" target="_blank">The latest Kaiser Health Tracking Survey</a> examines the
public’s views on potential policies to address drug costs – and finds majority
support for nine different potential actions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This includes overwhelming support for allowing the federal
government to negotiate with drug companies to get a lower price on medications
for people on Medicare (92%), making it easier for generic drugs to come to
market (87%), and requiring drug companies to release information to the public
on how they set drug prices (86%). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Other proposals with significant majority support include
allowing Americans to buy prescription drugs imported from Canada (72%) or from
online pharmacies based in Canada (64%).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A majority of Republicans, Democrats, and independents favor
eight of the nine specific policies. The lone exception is encouraging
people to buy lower-cost drugs by requiring them to pay a higher share if they
choose a similar, higher-cost drug – favored by majorities of Republicans (57%)
and independents (60%) but a smaller share of Democrats (40%).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The poll also probes more deeply into the public’s views of
how allowing Americans to import drugs from Canada or purchase drugs through
online Canadian pharmacies would impact costs, quality and safety. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Most think that each of these policy changes would make
medicines more affordable without sacrificing safety or quality (76% say this
about imported drugs; 68% say so about online pharmacy sales). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Fewer say either change would expose Americans to unsafe
medicines from other countries (35% and 39%, respectively) or lead U.S. drug
companies to do less research and development (29% and 33%, respectively).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The findings come from the late April Kaiser Health Tracking
Poll, designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family
Foundation and conducted from April 17- April 23 among a nationally
representative random digit dial telephone sample of 1,171 adults. Interviews
were conducted in English and Spanish by landline (421) and cell phone (750).
The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the full
sample. For results based on subgroups, the margin of sampling error may be
higher.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-683830356913231392017-04-20T09:07:00.000-05:002017-04-20T09:07:13.524-05:00NuView Life Sciences Calls for Solutions as Cancer Drug Costs Escalate<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgZ3gHwv8hwu92GnqB-LYvDbBZ7lIyU6jljlkxuHG6sWqcgulguLfGLz4epMumnX1iT_Q099yLSG-mo3aDjxRDd3vCVK-VDU5_A2jBPnVBIt97MzWIMkt1xyqSvFPAkcpRNTKY95nW7rtF/s1600/Dollar+stretching.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgZ3gHwv8hwu92GnqB-LYvDbBZ7lIyU6jljlkxuHG6sWqcgulguLfGLz4epMumnX1iT_Q099yLSG-mo3aDjxRDd3vCVK-VDU5_A2jBPnVBIt97MzWIMkt1xyqSvFPAkcpRNTKY95nW7rtF/s400/Dollar+stretching.jpg" width="400" /></a><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">The out-of-pocket price of many life-saving cancer
medications continues to grow, while insurance companies continue to raise
deductibles and copays. Patients, who are paying more for their prescriptions
than ever before, need solutions that offer cost-effective treatment.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">April 20, 2017--Cancer remains the second leading cause of
death in the United States, and more often than ever before, patients are
feeling the financial burden of obtaining potentially life-saving cancer drugs.
Newer cancer medications can cost patients over $100,000 each year, and it’s
not uncommon for patients to spend an average of $8,700 each month on the
medications they need to fight the disease.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Drug costs are skyrocketing as many insurance companies raise
deductibles and copayments, forcing many patients to pay more out-of-pocket for
the medications that could save their lives. In response, companies such as </span><a href="http://nuviewinfo.com/site/3/"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">NuView Life Sciences</span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> are
calling for drug cost solutions that give patients a more affordable way to
receive the treatment they need.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Only 50 years ago, it was common for new anticancer drugs to
cost an average of $100 each month, but now many patients regularly pay close
to $10,000 every month.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Many
patients—especially those under age 65 with no access to Medicare or
high-deductible insurance plans—simply cannot afford these drugs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Due to financial concerns, 32% of individuals recently
diagnosed with cancer and 28% of individuals with a past history of cancer ask
their doctors for lower-cost medications.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Unfortunately for some patients, some lower-cost cancer
medications simply slow the progression of cancer rather than providing
effective, disease-halting treatment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lower-cost drugs, such as those that are off-brand or generic,
can also come with a range of possible side effects the patient might
experience, from no effect at all to death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Paul Crowe, CEO of NuView Life Sciences, said, “We’re
experiencing a healthcare crisis in which patients are diagnosed with a
potentially deadly disease and offered a treatment option, only to find out
they can’t afford the treatment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“ This financial stress can be extremely demoralizing at a
time when it’s crucial that the patient is in the right state of mind to fight
the disease. These patients need solutions when it comes to paying for the
medications that could save their lives.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Companies like NuView are at the forefront of the movement to
find better, more cost-effective solutions that enable patients to achieve the
best possible outcomes from treatment. In the future, NuView hopes its NV-VPAC1
technology platform could be used to deliver targeted, highly-effective
anticancer drugs directly to cancer cells.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There is also some push to take the production of anticancer
medications out of the hands of the pharmaceutical industry. In attempts to
curb the rising costs of these drugs, some hospitals are beginning to purchase
cancer medications collectively.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Additionally, physicians
and other professionals are calling for a review of the way many cancer drugs
are packaged. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Some cancer drugs come in vials that contain more medication
than the patient actually needs. Even though leftover medication must often be
discarded for safety reasons, the prices of these drugs have not fallen to
reflect the amount of medication wasted. It’s estimated that up to $2.8 billion
is wasted every year simply because of the way cancer drugs are packaged.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Crowe said, “If we can find different ways to provide patients
with much-needed anticancer drugs that are more affordable and ensure the
patient receives proper care, we would be doing patients across the world a
disservice by choosing not to explore those options. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Companies and drug manufacturers must take the initiative to
find ways to lower the cost of these medications while giving patients the
life-saving treatments they need.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">About NuView Life Sciences:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Founded in 2005, NuView Life Sciences is a biotechnology
company located in Park City, Utah, working to improve the way cancer is
diagnosed and treated in our modern healthcare system. NuView is focused on
creating precision cancer diagnostics and therapeutics to improve patient
outcomes while reducing healthcare costs through the development and clinical
application of its exclusive peptide analog technology, NV-VPAC1. Led by a team
of industry experts with decades of combined experience in healthcare and
medical imaging technologies, NuView is poised to change how we look for and
respond to cancer. To learn more about NuView Life Sciences, please visit </span><a href="http://nuviewinfo.com/site/3/"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">http://nuviewinfo.com/site/3/</span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-64003265339284275862017-04-19T10:58:00.000-05:002017-04-19T10:58:59.015-05:00Nonprofit working to block drug imports has ties to pharma lobby<div id="article-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px;">
<h1 itemprop="headline" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "ITCFranklinGothicW01-Dm 812677"; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em;">
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<a href="https://www.mprnews.org/business" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Business</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">, </span><a href="http://npr.org/" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Emily Kopp </a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">, </span><a href="http://npr.org/" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Rachel
Bluth </a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">· Kaiser Health News · Apr 18, 2017</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP5qrcqJYZ_skU6eQZx6iff_RZqRirzu7mXDSQpWdU9BRbiXAspzucDc07Zhw_fSg8Et46wMXy1lqeUs0jPAA9y5ouJlm2pwv1wP1fYTj2YEOx2AL6c3kMHh9bO5Y6lsxd2AgYSLXatvX1/s1600/Money+finances.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP5qrcqJYZ_skU6eQZx6iff_RZqRirzu7mXDSQpWdU9BRbiXAspzucDc07Zhw_fSg8Et46wMXy1lqeUs0jPAA9y5ouJlm2pwv1wP1fYTj2YEOx2AL6c3kMHh9bO5Y6lsxd2AgYSLXatvX1/s400/Money+finances.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A nonprofit organization that has orchestrated a wide-reaching
campaign against foreign drug imports has deep ties to the Pharmaceutical
Research and Manufacturers of America, <a href="http://www.phrma.org/about/members">or PhRMA</a>, the powerful lobbying
group that includes Eli Lilly, Pfizer and Bayer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The nonprofit, called the <a href="http://www.safemedicines.org/about-us-2">Partnership for Safe Medicines</a>,
has recently emerged as a leading voice against Senate bills that would allow
drugs to be imported from Canada.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Both the lobbying group and the nonprofit partnership have
gone to great lengths to show that drugmakers are not driving what they
describe as a grass-roots effort to fight imports, including an expensive
advertising blitz and an event last week that featured high-profile former FBI
officials and a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">However, a Kaiser Health News analysis of groups involved in
the partnership shows more than one-third have received PhRMA funding or are
local chapters of groups that have received PhRMA funding, according to PhRMA
tax disclosures from 2013 to 2015.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Forty-seven of the organizations listed in the ads appear to
be advocacy organizations that received no money from PhRMA in those years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A PhRMA <a href="http://www.phrma.org/biography/scott-laganga" target="_blank">senior vice
president, </a>Scott LaGanga, previously led the Partnership for Safe
Medicines for 10 years. At PhRMA, LaGanga was responsible for the lobbying
group's alliances with patient advocacy groups, and he was simultaneously
listed as the executive director of the Partnership for Safe Medicines on each
of that group's annual tax filings since 2007, the earliest year for which they
are <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/562529660" target="_blank">available from ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer.</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">LaGanga wrote a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/jcb.2011.18" target="_blank">2011
article</a> about the partnership's origins. Published in the <i>Journal
of Commercial Biotechnology</i>, it described "public-private partnerships
in addressing counterfeit medicines." His PhRMA job was not disclosed in
the article.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">From 2010 to 2014, the organization hosted a conference called
the Partnership for Safe Medicines Interchange. In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8-qnxL0zv0&t=1s">a video</a> from
a 2013 event, LaGanga thanks pharmaceutical companies, most of them PhRMA
members, for sponsoring the event.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In February, LaGanga moved to a senior role at PhRMA and
stepped down as executive director of the Partnership for Safe Medicines, just
as the group's campaign to stop import legislation was revving up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The partnership's new executive director, <a href="http://www.safemedicines.org/about-us-2/psmboard">Shabbir Safdar</a>,
said LaGanga resigned from the group to avoid the appearance of a conflict of
interest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"That's why Scott's not executive director anymore,"
he said. PhRMA declined to make LaGanga available for an interview.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Considering Legislation</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Senate push to allow Americans to buy pharmaceuticals from
Canada comes as more patients balk at filling prescriptions because of soaring
drug prices. Prescription medicines purchased in the U.S. can run three times
what they cost in Canada, <a href="http://khn.org/news/trumps-promise-to-rein-in-drug-prices-could-open-dam-to-importation-laws/" target="_blank">data</a> from the company PharmacyChecker.com show.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In 2016, about <a href="http://khn.org/news/faced-with-unaffordable-drug-prices-tens-of-millions-buy-medicine-outside-u-s/" target="_blank">19 million Americans</a> purchased pharmaceuticals
illegally from foreign sources through online pharmacies or while traveling,
according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Many survey respondents cited
pricing disparities as the reason.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A bill cosponsored by <a href="https://www.sanders.senate.gov/">Sen. Bernie Sanders</a> (I-Vt.)
would provide a mechanism for Canadian drug manufacturers to sell to U.S.
consumers and pharmacies. Sanders introduced the bill in February. In January,
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) also <a href="https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=E13A17CA-130A-4FB8-AB24-66BA4D0C176F">introduced
a bill</a> to allow drug imports from Canada.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the House, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) introduced a
similar bill to Sanders', along with 23 other Democrats.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The U.S. drug industry has strongly opposed efforts to open
the borders to drug imports, but the PhRMA lobbying group is not mentioned in
the nonprofit partnership's recent advertising blitz against the proposed legislation.
The nonprofit says its grass-roots effort is supported by 170 members,
including professional organizations and trade groups.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The nonprofit describes PhRMA as a dues-paying member with no
larger role in shaping the group's activities. Partnership spokeswoman Clare
Krusing would not say how much each member contributes. PhRMA spokeswoman
Allyson Funk declined to say whether PhRMA funds the partnership.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"PhRMA engages with stakeholders across the health care
system to hear their perspectives and priorities," Funk said. "We
work with many organizations with which we have both agreements and
disagreements on public policy issues, and believe engagement and dialogue are
critical."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Campaigning Against Drug Imports</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The partnership recently launched its ad campaign, warning
against the alleged dangers of legalizing Canadian drug imports. It includes
television commercials, promoted search results on Google and a full-page <a href="https://kaiserhealthnews.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/partnership-for-safe-medicines.pdf" target="_blank">print ad</a> in <i>The Washington Post</i> and <i>The
Hill</i>. The group's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/SafeMedicines/videos" target="_blank">YouTube
page</a> shows recent commercials targeted to viewers in 13 states.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"We don't disclose specific ad figures, but the campaign
is in the high six figures," Safdar said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The commercials ask voters to urge their senators to
"oppose dangerous drug importation legislation."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The newspaper ad reads, "Keep the nation's prescription
drug supply safe. Urge the Senate to reject drug importation measures."
Its headline declares that "170 healthcare advocacy groups oppose drug
importation," noting a <a href="http://protectusrxsupply.org/" target="_blank">letter to Congress signed by its members.</a> The ad lists
160 members who signed the letter, and PhRMA's name is not included.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"Having a big membership allows the coalition to present
what looks like a unified show of grass-roots support ... but it does raise
questions about which members of the coalition are really driving and funding
the group's policy-making," said <a href="http://upenn.academia.edu/MatthewMcCoy">Matthew McCoy</a>, a postdoctoral
fellow at the University of Pennsylvania who studies patient advocacy groups.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The list of groups includes at least 64 trade organizations
representing the biomedical industry, professional associations representing
pharmacists, a private research company and two insurance companies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One group that signed the letter, the "Citrus Council,
National Kidney Foundation of Florida Inc.," represents a single
volunteer, according to an email from the group. A spokesman for the National
Kidney Foundation of Florida said the volunteer's views contradict the position
of the umbrella group, and said the foundation supports "any sort of drug
importation that allows our patients to have access to drugs at the best
price."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Two of the hepatitis patients' advocacy groups that were
listed, the National Association of Hepatitis Task Forces and the California
Hepatitis C Task Force, are run by the same person, Bill Remak. Remak said the
groups receive small amounts of PhRMA funding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"I don't enjoy having to take this extreme position of
saying we shouldn't import at all, but until we have some oversight regime,
some way of protecting consumers, it's a really tough call," he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"Current drug importation proposals do not appear to have
equal safety and chain-of-custody accountability laid out adequately for
patient safety concerns," said William Arnold, president of the Community
Access National Network, which is also listed in the ad and is an advocacy and
support group for people living with HIV/AIDS or hepatitis in Washington, D.C.
His group did not accept money from PhRMA between 2013 to 2015, the Kaiser
Health News analysis found.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Concerns About Safety And Price</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Last week, the partnership hosted a panel at the National
Press Club featuring former FBI director Louis Freeh and former FDA
commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach. The discussion focused on the alleged
health and legal dangers of online pharmacies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"You can talk about lowering prices, but if a drug comes
with a high probability of toxicity and death, that comes at a high cost to the
patient," von Eschenbach said. "That's what's at issue with drug
importation."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Each speaker argued that the bill co-sponsored by Sanders
would be harmful to patients. Around the same time that bill was introduced,
the partnership also sent emails to member organizations seeking help to stop
such a measure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Speakers at the partnership event claimed importation would
lead to a flood of counterfeit medicines laced with arsenic, fentanyl and lead
paint.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"These drugs are manufactured in jungles, in tin drums,
in basements. ... Those are the sort of sanitary conditions we're talking about
here," said George Karavetsos, a former director of the FDA's Office of
Criminal Investigations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Both von Eschenbach and Karavetsos have ties to the
pharmaceutical industry. Von Eschenbach left the FDA in 2009 to join <a href="http://www.greenleafhealth.com/">Greenleaf Health</a>, which counsels
pharmaceutical clients, before starting his own consulting company, and
Karavetsos <a href="https://www.dlapiper.com/en/us/news/2017/01/former-fda-criminal-investigations-director-joins/" target="_blank">counsels pharmaceutical clients</a> at DLA Piper, a
Washington, D.C., law firm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In an interview, Josh Miller-Lewis, Sanders' deputy director
of communications, refuted Karavetsos' arguments. He said Canadian drugmakers
can apply for licenses, and all drugs would have to come from FDA-inspected
plants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Politico reported in October that <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/phrma-lobby-pricing-battle-230277" target="_blank">PhRMA is bolstering its war chest</a> by another $100
million per year, suggesting to many industry analysts that drugmakers are
gearing up for a ferocious fight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"I think it's safe to say pharmaceutical corporations are
prepared to spend some fraction of their multibillion-dollar profits to fight
drug importation and any other policy that might end the plague of overpriced
medicine," said Rick Claypool, research director for Public Citizen, a
watchdog group critical of the drug industry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</h1>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-63120724434674195612017-03-23T10:39:00.000-05:002017-03-23T10:39:06.295-05:00An Open Letter to President Trump: How personal importation of brand-name medicines can help lower health costs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdpHuxL6C2ktakEIBiIz6-5JCmU4jMO523V6MNKO6drhld9XmEAfusUOuhMN32LZ54iAi2VxngzxLnrIJDgM3P08TYiilkjpMOdJK33Erzbg9NOvpAzuSuSj3FiQc3uFekGC5jOidAVWwh/s1600/white+house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdpHuxL6C2ktakEIBiIz6-5JCmU4jMO523V6MNKO6drhld9XmEAfusUOuhMN32LZ54iAi2VxngzxLnrIJDgM3P08TYiilkjpMOdJK33Erzbg9NOvpAzuSuSj3FiQc3uFekGC5jOidAVWwh/s400/white+house.jpg" width="348" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dear
President Trump:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Recently, you
have once again called for measures to lower the costs of prescription
medicines for millions of Americans who continue to be denied the health
benefits of access to a regime of vital medicines for one reason—they are
unaffordable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Estimates are
that as many as 46 million Americans have been forced to make a decision to
‘skip ‘ their medicines because of the predatory pricing practices of Pharma.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">All of this
is unnecessary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">If you act in
support of a workable legislative bill to allow the personal importation of
brand-name prescription medicines from licensed, registered pharmacies in Tier
One Countries—including but not limited to Canada—whose standards of safety and
efficacy meet or exceed those of the U.S., there could be almost immediate
relief from what are the highest drug prices in the industrial world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">However,
recently, a great deal of attention has been directed towards a proposal from
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ), Rep. Elijah Cummings (D MD 24)and others to pass what was a failed model when it was
first introduced in 2003, and then brought forth again a few years later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The irony of
Senator Booker’s sponsorship of the bill should be a red flag. He represents New Jersey, which is nicknamed
the United State of Pharma due to the presence of 46 Pharma companies, leading
to Pharma’s long-standing influence upon New Jersey politics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Senator
Booker, who before the 2016 elections had received $239,000 from Pharma-related
contibutions voted against an amendment to allow personal importation offered
by Senator Sanders during the recent budget reconciliation process, one of 13
Democrats to do so, a vote which drew a
great deal of criticism from media, the public and Democrat Party members.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">He said he
would support personal importation IF the proper safety standards were
included. Instead, he and others have
come together in support of the fatally
flawed 2003 legislation. (To review the
built-in failings of the bill S. 469 </span><a href="http://rxforamericanhealth.blogspot.com/2017/02/personal-importation-it-is-time-for.html"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">click here</span></a><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, published in RxforAmericanHealth.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Simply put,
this is not legislation based upon the right and ability of American citizens
to make independent, informed healthcare decisions. It is
not a personal importation bill. Rather,
it is an awkwardly written set of procedures that could actually lead to
higher prices as it calls for wholesaling of medicines from Canada to
wholesalers in the U.S., with no guarantee that they would pass along savings
to American patients.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It would also
impose U.S. oversight and approval of
the safety, efficacy and validity of medicines approved by the Canadian system,
which is widely recognized as being on par with the U.S. and other Tier One
Countries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The solution
is not that difficult. There are bills
offered by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Rep. Keith
Ellision (D MN 7) that would allow American patients to personally import
medicines from Canada (and/or) other countries whose standards of safety and
efficacy are recognized as being equal to those of the U.S.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Recently, the
FDA has announced the launch of a series of reciprocal agreements with a number
of Tier One Countries so the structure for guaranteeing the safety of medicines
from those countries is already in place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua", serif; font-size: 12pt;">So, Mr.
President when supporters of S. 469 come to you, we recommend you ask some
straight questions that demand straight answers:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif;">1. Does anyone
truly believe that Canadian provincial licensing authorities will cede any of
that authority to allow the FDA to come into Canada to provide what is
basically an oversight of the authority/ability of licensing procedures? As
Senator Sanders has often said, “Show me the Dead Canadians” a reference to
those who have died from non-existent failures of the Canadian system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif;">2. How will
personal importation into the U.S., which has been identified with Canada for
more than 17 years be defensible within Canada if wholesaling is allowed,
reviving an old argument about Canadian objections to the Country becoming
'America's Drugstore'? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif;">3. In a
related issue, there is a continuing push for Pharmacare in Canada. Will S.
469 become the cause of what could be viewed in Canada as a threat to its
ability to address its own challenges and problems of pharma costs and
availability?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif;">4. S. 469 is
not personal importation, but is instead a push for a different, unworkable,
doomed-to-failure importation strategy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif;">5. You have suggested that you want to
renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Perhaps you should consider the recommendation from more than 14 yearsa go
that personal importation should be a ‘trade issue,’ a recommendation from no less an authority
than then-Pfizer CEO Kimball. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif;">5. A fatal flaw of S. 469 is that it is a
mistaken claim that without FDA approval (US Approval), the regulatory
agencies in Tier One countries are not capable of determining the safety and efficacy
of medicines, despite their record that
proves that the medicines from Tier One
Countries are safe, and their regulatory agencies are capable of
guaranteeing the safety, efficacy and authenticity of medicines on a par with
U.S. authorities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif;">6. Some proponents of S. 469
say or hope it is a shift of the determination of safety, efficacy and
authenticity of medicines and sources from countries of origin to the
dispensing entity, such as pharmacies who dispense the medicines.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif;">7. Perhaps you should ask the supporters of S.
469 if they will guarantee that any savings they claim from wholesale
operations will be shared with American patients.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif;">So, Mr. President,
we urge you: Be alert as to what policy or combination of policies you might
choose to end the predatory pricing of Pharma.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif;">With that, we
respectfully suggest that you consider
the provisions in the </span><a href="http://americanrxbillofrights.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif;">AmericanRxBillof Rights</span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">. And, as a first ‘baby’ step, that you consider issuing an executive order
for HHS Secretary Price to implement reciprocity (the framework is now in place
for Memorandums of Understanding ) with Tier One countries. By allowing true
personal importation for individuals, you will plant the seeds for lowering
other health care costs thanks to the improved health of American patients who
will thereby avoid worsening medical conditions that can be avoided by access
to the benefits made possible by access to a regimen of authentic, safe and affordable prescribed
medicines. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Respectfully submitted,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Daniel Hines<br />
Publisher<br />
TodaysSeniorsNetwork<br />
RxforAmericanHealth<br />
AmericanRxBillof Rights<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-23869198544802737402017-03-15T13:46:00.001-05:002017-03-15T13:46:37.253-05:00<br />
<h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: center;">Breaking N<span style="font-size: small;">ews about Prescription Medicine Prices, Affordability<br /></span></li>
</ul>
</h3>
<br />
<h1 class="js-quickedit-page-title page-title" style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(201, 199, 199); box-sizing: inherit; color: #e97622; font-family: Proxima-Nova, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.25; margin: 1rem 0px; padding-bottom: 1rem;">
<span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Top 15 pharma companies by 2016 revenue</span></span></h1>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #333333; font-family: Proxima-Nova, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
by <a href="http://www.fiercepharma.com/author/eric-palmer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #0f253a; font-style: italic; text-decoration: none;">Eric Palmer</a> | </div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: Proxima-Nova, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
<time datetime="2017-03-14T12:00:00Z" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Mar 14, 2017 12:00pm (<a href="http://go.questexweb.com/dc/Pbv9O4c1H4PY1a6n8S1hi1TonTVKfRXO95ug5aPbG-MPOLOPQ5r2lmTsveozW29Lws15wVvXaImJKSgInkojKLs73K3vl0tN4VJYBfYYJ7czvXGv4WIJk3Ov5AjOYw62QeO0f7Oo6It5PpmSkzFouGv_KIZsM1DXjQdrvCh4SyJBNrB-bHsju_B-ZZX1c1Lm/HM001eG0uE3zJF30QhQ003e" target="_blank">From Fierce Pharma</a>)</time></div>
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #333333; font-family: Proxima-Nova, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">
The biopharma industry is so dynamic and has had so many watershed moments for one reason or another that for someone to proclaim a new one is pretty pointless. And so I won’t. Still, it does feel as if something's happening here. The building tensions over pricing, and a review of the top 15 companies by 2016 revenues, suggests the relentless march forward of drug prices and profits may have slowed...(read more)</div>
<h3>
<div>
</div>
</h3>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 119.7pt;" valign="top" width="160">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">1.
Johnson & Johnson<br />
Headquarters:<br />
New Brunswick, New Jersey<br />
2016 revenues: $71.89 billion<br />
2015 revenues: $70.04 billion</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 119.7pt;" valign="top" width="160">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">2.
Pfizer<br />
Headquarters: <br />
New York City<br />
2016 revenues: $52.82 billion<br />
2015 revenues: $48.85 billion</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 119.7pt;" valign="top" width="160">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">3.
Roche<br />
Headquarters:<br />
Basel, Switzerland<br />
2016 revenues: CHF 50.576 billion (about $50.11 billion)<br />
2015 revenues: CHF 48.145 billion (about $47.70 billion)</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 119.7pt;" valign="top" width="160">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"> 4.
Novartis<br />
Headquarters:<br />
Basel, Switzerland<br />
2016 revenue: $48.52 billion<br />
2015 revenue: $49.41 billion</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 119.7pt;" valign="top" width="160">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">5. Merck
& Co.<br />
Headquarters: Kenilworth, NJ<br />
2016 revenues: $39.8 billion<br />
2015 revenues: $39.5 billion</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 119.7pt;" valign="top" width="160">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">6.
Sanofi<br />
Headquarters: Paris<br />
2016 revenue: €34.708 billion (about $36.57 billion)<br />
2015 revenue: €34.861 billion (about $36.73 billion)</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 119.7pt;" valign="top" width="160">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">7.
GlaxoSmithKline<br />
Headquarters:<br />
Brentford, U.K.<br />
2016 revenues: £27.889 billion (about $34.79 billion)<br />
2015 revenues: £23.923 billion (about $29.84 billion) </span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 119.7pt;" valign="top" width="160">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">8.
Gilead Sciences<br />
Headquarters:<br />
Foster City, California<br />
2016 revenues: $30.39 billion<br />
2015 revenues: $32.15 billion</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 119.7pt;" valign="top" width="160">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">9.
AbbVie<br />
Headquarters: North Chicago, Illinois<br />
2016 revenues: $25.56 billion<br />
2015 revenues: $22.82 billion</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 119.7pt;" valign="top" width="160">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">10.
Bayer (healthcare businesses)<br />
Headquarters: Leverkusen, Germany<br />
2016 revenues: €23.98 billion ($25.27 billion)<br />
2015 revenues: €22.87 billion ($24.09 billion)</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 119.7pt;" valign="top" width="160">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">11.
AstraZeneca<br />
Headquarters: London<br />
2016 revenues: $23.00 billion<br />
2015 revenues: $24.71 billion</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 119.7pt;" valign="top" width="160">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">12.
Amgen<br />
Headquarters:<br />
Thousand Oaks, California<br />
2016 revenues: $22.99 billion<br />
2015 revenues: $21.66 billion</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">13.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries<br />
Headquarters: Petah Tikva, Israel<br />
2016 revenues: $21.90 billion<br />
2015 revenues: $20.00 billion </span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">14. Eli
Lilly & Co.<br />
Headquarters: Indianapolis, Indiana<br />
2016 revenues: $21.22 billion<br />
2015 revenues: $20 billion</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td colspan="2" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 159.6pt;" valign="top" width="213">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">15.
Bristol-Myers Squibb<br />
Headquarters: New York City<br />
2016 revenues: $19.427 billion<br />
2015 revenues: $16.56 billion</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-63482666415969419092017-03-15T09:59:00.000-05:002017-03-15T09:59:43.153-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Kw24k-A4jxZpsaJQkBMwlgHvCRGbovjfQFzUIDhWBvWrX7vtmo20cReFLYD6GhsKQyBnz_5oJ4QjH5SI9Snc9Idi_t5eV3JKsNcUy8Ib0kMfhTdv-nwNNqjHn9Nct2XrztxykQlwb3gj/s1600/Prescriptions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Kw24k-A4jxZpsaJQkBMwlgHvCRGbovjfQFzUIDhWBvWrX7vtmo20cReFLYD6GhsKQyBnz_5oJ4QjH5SI9Snc9Idi_t5eV3JKsNcUy8Ib0kMfhTdv-nwNNqjHn9Nct2XrztxykQlwb3gj/s400/Prescriptions.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>“</b><b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ryancare” Dead on Arrival: Can We Please Now Try
Single Payer?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">BY ELLEN BROWN/WEB OF DEBT<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Canadian plan also helps Canadians live longer
and healthier than Americans. . . . We need, as a nation, to reexamine the
single-payer plan, as many individual states are doing. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">— Donald Trump, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PV6qZU_xev8C&q=single-payer#v=snippet&q=single-payer&f=false"><span style="font-style: normal;">The America We Deserve</span></a> (2000)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">T</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">he new American Health Care Act
has been unveiled, and critics are calling it <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/141203/trumpcare-already-dead">more
flawed</a> even than the Obamacare it was meant to replace. Dubbed
“Ryancare” or “Trumpcare” (<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/politics/obamacare-republicans-trumpcare-ryancare/">over
the objection</a> of White House staff), the Republican health care bill
is under attack from left and right, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/politics/obamacare-repeal-replace-bill-congress/">with
even conservative leaders calling it</a> “Obamacare Lite”, “bad policy”, a
“warmed-over substitute,” and “dead on arrival.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The problem for both administrations is that they have been
trying to fund a bloated, inefficient, and overpriced medical system with
scarce taxpayer funds, without capping its costs. <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/new-peak-us-health-care-spending-10345-per-person/">US
healthcare costs in 2016</a> averaged $10,345 per person, for a total
of $3.35 trillion dollars, a full 18 percent of the entire economy, twice as
much as in other industrialized countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ross Perot, who ran for president in 1992, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPIVI0CbCmg">had the right idea</a>: he
said all we have to do is to look at other countries that have better health
care at lower cost and copy them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So which industrialized countries do it better
than the US? The answer is, all of them.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So which industrialized countries do it better than the US?
The answer is, <a href="http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2015/oct/us-health-care-from-a-lobal-perspective">all
of them</a>.They <i>all</i> not only provide healthcare for the <i>entire</i> population
at about half the cost, but they get better health outcomes than in the US.
Their citizens have longer lifespans, fewer infant mortalities and less chronic
disease.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">President Trump, who is all about getting the most bang for
the buck, should love that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Hard to Argue with Success<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The secret to the success of these more efficient systems is
that they control medical costs. According to T. R. Reid in <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Healing_of_America"><span style="font-style: normal;">The Healing of America</span></a></i>, they follow
one of three models: the “Bismarck model” established in Germany, in which
health providers and insurers are private but insurers are not allowed to make
a profit; the “Beveridge model” adopted in Britain, where most healthcare
providers work as government employees and the government acts as the single
payer for all health services; and the Canadian model, a single-payer system in
which the healthcare providers are mostly private.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A single government payer can negotiate much lower drug prices
– about half what we pay in the US – and lower hospital prices. Single-payer is
also much easier to administer. Cutting out the paperwork can save 30 percent
on the cost of insurance.<a href="http://www.pnhp.org/news/2016/may/sanders-health-care-plan">According to
a May 2016 post</a> by Physicians for a National Health Program:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Per capita, the U.S. spends three times as much for health
care as the U.K., whose taxpayer-funded National Health Service provides health
care to citizens without additional charges or co-pays. In 2013, U.S. taxpayers
footed the bill for 64.3 percent of U.S. health care — about $1.9 trillion. Yet
in the U.S. nearly 30 million of our citizens still lack any form of insurance
coverage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The for-profit U.S. health care system is corrupt,
dysfunctional and deadly. In Canada, only 1.5 percent of health care costs are
devoted to administration of its single-payer system. In the U.S., 31 percent
of health care expenditures flow to the private insurance industry. Americans
pay far more for prescription drugs. Last year, CNN reported, Americans paid
nearly 10 times as much for prescription Nexium as it cost in the Netherlands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Single payer, or Medicare for All, is the system proposed in
2016 by Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. It is also the system endorsed by
Donald Trump in his book<i><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PV6qZU_xev8C&q=single-payer#v=snippet&q=single-payer&f=false"><span style="font-style: normal;">The America We Deserve</span></a></i>. Mr. Trump
confirmed his admiration for that approach in January 2015, when he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-vEDQRJRSA">said on David Letterman</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A friend of mine was in Scotland recently. He got very, very
sick. They took him by ambulance and he was there for four days. He was really
in trouble, and they released him and he said, ‘Where do I pay?’ And they said,
‘There’s no charge.’ Not only that, he said it was like great doctors, great
care. I mean we could have a great system in this country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Contrary to the claims of its opponents, the single-payer plan
of Bernie Sanders would not have been unaffordable. Rather, <a href="http://blogs.umass.edu/econnews/category/friedman/">according to research</a> by
University of Massachusetts Amherst<i> </i>Professor Gerald Friedman, it
would have generated substantial savings for the government:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Under the single-payer system envisioned by “The Expanded
& Improved Medicare For All Act” (H.R. 676), the U.S. could save $592
billion – $476 billion by eliminating administrative waste associated with the
private insurance industry and $116 billion by reducing drug prices …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2015/oct/us-health-care-from-a-global-perspective">According
to OECD health data</a>, in 2013 the British were getting their healthcare for
$3,364 per capita annually; the Germans for $4,920; the French for $4,361; and
the Japanese for $3,713. The tab for Americans was $9,086, at least double the
others. With single-payer at the OECD average of $3,661 and a population of 322
million, we should be able to cover all our healthcare for under $1.2 trillion
annually – well under half what we are paying now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Problem Is Not Just the High Cost of Insurance<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That is true in theory; but governments at all levels in the
US already spend $1.6 trillion for healthcare, which goes mainly to Medicare and
Medicaid and covers only 17 percent of the population. Where is the
discrepancy?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For one thing, Medicare and Medicaid are more expensive than
they need to be, because the US government has been prevented from negotiating
drug and hospital costs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In January, a bill put forth by Sen. Sanders to allow the
importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada was voted down. <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/314596-sanders-to-roll-out-legislation-allowing-medicare-to-negotiate-drug">Sanders
is now planning to introduce</a>a bill to allow Medicare to negotiate drug
prices, for which he is hoping for the support of the president. Trump
indicated throughout his presidential campaign that he would support
negotiating drug prices; and in January, he said that the pharmaceutical
industry is “getting away with murder” because of what it charges the
government. <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/2/12/1632877/-Regenerating-Public-Health-Beyond-Obama-and-Trump">As
observed by Ronnie Cummins</a>, International Director of the Organic Consumers
Association, in February 2017:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">. . . [B]ig pharmaceutical companies, for-profit hospitals and
health insurers are allowed to jack up their profit margins at will. . . .
Simply giving everyone access to Big Pharma’s overpriced drugs, and corporate
hospitals’ profit-at-any-cost tests and treatment, will result in little more
than soaring healthcare costs, with uninsured and insured alike remaining sick
or becoming even sicker.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Besides the unnecessarily high cost of drugs, the US medical
system is prone to over-diagnosing and over-treating. The Congressional Budget
Office says that up to <a href="http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/06/many-common-medical-tests-and-treatments-are-unnecessary/index.htm">30
percent of the health care in the US is unnecessary</a>. <a href="http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2015/oct/us-health-care-from-a-global-perspective">We
use more medical technology</a>then in other countries, including more
expensive diagnostic equipment. The equipment must be used in order to recoup
its costs. Unnecessary testing and treatment can create new health problems,
requiring yet more treatment, further driving up medical bills.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Drug companies are driven by profit, and their market is
sickness – a market they have little incentive to shrink. There is not much
profit to be extracted from quick, effective cures. The money is in the drugs
that have to be taken for 30 years, killing us slowly. And they are killing us. <i><a href="http://ethics.harvard.edu/blog/new-prescription-drugs-major-health-risk-few-offsetting-advantages"><span style="font-style: normal;">Pharmaceutical drugs taken as prescribed are the
fourth leading cause of US deaths</span></a>, </i>after heart disease,
cancer and stroke. <b> </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The US is the only industrialized country besides New Zealand
that allows drug companies to advertise pharmaceuticals. <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/2/12/1632877/-Regenerating-Public-Health-Beyond-Obama-and-Trump">Big
Pharma spends more</a> on lobbying than any other US industry, and it
spends more than $5 billion a year on advertising. Lured by drug advertising,
Americans are popping pills they don’t need, with side effects that are
creating problems where none existed before. Americans compose <b>only 5
percent of the world’s population, yet we consume fully <a href="https://ellenbrown.com/www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/156229/Doctored__The_Movie_2013The_Monopolization_Of_Our_Medical_System/"><span style="font-weight: normal;">50 percent of Big Pharma’s drugs</span></a></b>and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2142481/Americans-consume-80-percent-worlds-pain-pills-prescription-drug-abuse-epidemic-explodes.html">80
percent of the world’s pain pills</a>. We not only <a href="http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/27/1/221.full">take more drugs</a> (measured
in grams of active ingredient) than people in most other countries, but we have
the highest use of new prescription drugs, which have a <a href="http://ethics.harvard.edu/blog/new-prescription-drugs-major-health-risk-few-offsetting-advantages">1
in 5 chance of causing serious adverse reactions</a> after they have been
approved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2282014">The US death
toll from prescription drugs taken as prescribed</a> is now 128,000 per
year.<a href="http://www.dcclothesline.com/2017/03/06/another-devastating-revelation-on-killer-medical-drugs-is-buried/">As
Jon Rappaport observes</a>, with those results Big Pharma should be under
criminal investigation. But the legal drug industry has grown too powerful for
that. <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2004/07/15/the-truth-about-the-drug-companies/">According
to Dr. Marcia Angell</a>, former editor in chief of the New England Journal of
Medicine, writing in 2002:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The combined profits for the ten drug companies in the Fortune
500 ($35.9 billion) were more than the profits for all the other 490 businesses
put together ($33.7 billion). Over the past two decades the pharmaceutical
industry has [become] a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit,
[using] its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in
its way, including the US Congress, the FDA, academic medical centers, and the
medical profession itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s Just Good Business</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/2/12/1632877/-Regenerating-Public-Health-Beyond-Obama-and-Trump">US
healthcare costs are projected</a> to grow at 6 percent a year over the
next decade. The result could be to bankrupt not only millions of consumers but
the entire federal government.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600"
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</v:shapetype><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_1" o:spid="_x0000_s1026" type="#_x0000_t75"
alt="ellen brown"
href="https://maxcdn1.laprogressive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/ellen_brown.jpg"
style='position:absolute;margin-left:0;margin-top:.35pt;width:150pt;height:212.25pt;
z-index:251658240;visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square;
mso-width-percent:0;mso-height-percent:0;mso-wrap-distance-left:9pt;
mso-wrap-distance-top:0;mso-wrap-distance-right:9pt;
mso-wrap-distance-bottom:0;mso-position-horizontal:absolute;
mso-position-horizontal-relative:text;mso-position-vertical:absolute;
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mso-width-relative:page;mso-height-relative:page' o:button="t">
<v:imagedata src="file:///C:/Users/PCuser/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.jpg"
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><a href="https://maxcdn1.laprogressive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/ellen_brown.jpg"><img align="left" alt="ellen brown" border="0" height="283" hspace="12" src="file:///C:/Users/PCuser/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.jpg" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_1" width="200" /></a><!--[endif]--><b>O</b>bamacare
has not worked, and Ryancare is not likely to work. As demonstrated in many
other industrialized countries, single-payer delivers better health care at
half the cost that Americans are paying now.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Winston Churchill is said to have quipped, “You can always
count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything
else.” We need to try a thrifty version of Medicare for all, with negotiated
prices for drugs, hospitals and diagnostic equipment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Ellen Brown</b><o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-56362564153840588772017-02-20T14:07:00.001-06:002017-02-20T15:46:08.475-06:00Personal Importation: It is time for Congress and the Administration to act<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAeJSxZOKRI3YS6wV4M2cyae8i0p9J0Ir7dLSVRjPs9PmuouXcdF9DUWt4gCv7LgXpvpNNjZ2gpU_wJCtcdO8ewjt_5CbdFSAEmDgw5dERFstKUNaNW_uAZ_rnRLBqVbBD4tUbf0XYZ16a/s1600/Capitol+Dome%252C+DC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="time for congress, president to act to support personal importation" border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAeJSxZOKRI3YS6wV4M2cyae8i0p9J0Ir7dLSVRjPs9PmuouXcdF9DUWt4gCv7LgXpvpNNjZ2gpU_wJCtcdO8ewjt_5CbdFSAEmDgw5dERFstKUNaNW_uAZ_rnRLBqVbBD4tUbf0XYZ16a/s400/Capitol+Dome%252C+DC.jpg" title="graphic art US Capitol" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Recently,
Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Charles Grassley (R-IA) and John McCain wrote a
letter to Health and Human Services(HHS) Secretary Tom Price asking him to
utilize legislation crafted 14 years ago to exercise his authority to ‘enable’
personal importation of prescription medicines under provisions of the Medicare
Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That such
a request to the Secretary is necessary is a reflection of the failure of
Congress to overcome the opposition of Pharma, which views personal importation
as a threat to its ability to impose the highest prescription drug prices in
the world upon American patients.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
Senators are not alone in making such a request. A group of 33 Democrat members
of the House of Representatives sent a similar appeal to President Obama,
asking him to issue an executive order shortly before the end of his
Presidency. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Also,
throughout the last 14 years, advocates for personal importation have
challenged previous HHS Secretaries to act on specific portions of the
legislation, namely, requiring that …’The Secretary, in consultation with
appropriate government agencies, shall conduct a study on the importation of
drugs into the United States pursuant to section 804 of the Federal Food, Drug,
and Cosmetic Act (as added by section 1121 of this Act). Not later than 12
months after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit
to the appropriate committees of the Congress a report providing the findings
of such study”; and, “…In particular, the Secretary shall by regulation grant
individuals a waiver to permit individuals to import into the United States a
prescription drug that— ‘‘(A) is imported from a licensed pharmacy for personal
use by an individual, not for resale, in quantities that do not exceed a 90-day
supply; ‘‘(B) is accompanied by a copy of a valid prescription; ‘‘(C) is
imported from Canada, from a seller registered with the Secretary; ‘‘(D) is a
prescription drug approved by the Secretary under chapter V; Regulations...”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">These
provisions are an early indication of the fact that there was—and remains
today—a realization by Congress that even in 2003, relief was needed for the
millions of Americans who were then—and today—denied access to safe, affordable
brand-name prescription medicines from licensed, registered pharmacies in Tier
One Countries whose standards of safety and efficacy meet or exceed those of
the U.S. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Significantly,
although the HHS Secretaries over the years chose to not act on the
legislation, American patients acted on their own initiative, and by so doing
have provided a de facto validation of the authenticity and validity of
personal importation of brand-name medicines from Tier One Countries of which
Canada is one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But,
rather than relying upon 14-year old legislation, it is now time for Congress
to act to deal with the current state of and continuing needs of American
patients to incorporate personal importation into effective legislation as
reflected in the AmericanRxBillofRights which was submitted to the platform
committees of the Democrat and Republican Platform Committees of the 2016
conventions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The need
for a new approach is because there exists the potential for one provision of
the 2003 Act to be not only unnecessary but actually harmful to personal
importation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The provision
in the 2003 act would empower the HHS Secretary to establish wholesale
operations within the U.S., solely for the importation of medicines from Canada
to be resold in the U.S., as well as allowing specific pharmacies to engage in
personal importation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This was
opposed by many proponents of personal importation when it was first presented
in the 2003 legislation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There are
several reasons for concern about this segment of the 14-year-old bill:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 39.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">One
of the debates that arose about personal importation from Canada in 2003, was a
reaction from some Canadian officials being fearful that Canada would become ‘America’s
drugstore’ which can be directly linked to the wholesaling provision;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 39.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Equally
pertinent, many American advocates of personal importation believed then, and
continue to do so today, that to grant such blanket authority to wholesalers
and individual pharmacies would defeat the very purpose of personal
importation, i.e., individual American patients’ access to safe, affordable
brand-name medicines;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 39.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That
is because we must be concerned about U.S. wholesalers gaining control over
large supplies or sources of lower-cost medicines, giving them a capability to
control prices in a manner similar to the abusive practices of Pharma, and
crippling the ability of Americans to make purchases of their meds from any
source other than the wholesalers and pharmacists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is time,
therefore, for Congress, especially those erstwhile supporters of personal importation
to come together to form a consensus on comprehensive legislation for personal
importation of prescription medicines as the only readily available avenue with
which to ensure that no American is denied their access to vital lifeline
medicines because they are unaffordable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This
calls for consensus building in which Representatives and Senators of both
parties who support personal importation instruct their staffs to come together
to identify what opportunities—and obstacles—face enactment of new, current
legislation to lower prescription drug prices via personal importation; address such
problems caused by the one in ten Americans not being able to afford their medicines; to
restrain the Food and Drug Administration from the seizure and destruction of
medicines which can easily be identified as authentic, safe medicines. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By acting
in such a manner to meet their obligations to the American public, Congress can
develop legislation in which personal importation will have a major role and
will reflect the realities of the needs of Americans patients today, rather
than simply appealing for the HHS Secretary to carry the water on this issue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-72042768077775674022017-02-08T11:18:00.000-06:002017-02-08T11:18:23.606-06:00HHS Pick Price Made ‘Brazen’ Stock Trades While His Committee Was Under Scrutiny<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">By </span><a href="http://khn.org/news/author/marisa-taylor/" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b>Marisa Taylor</b></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> and </span><a href="http://khn.org/news/author/christina-jewett/" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><b>Christina Jewett</b></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqFH6UeUXQHIIosxnMoH7_w7QmSi5hbbbhL4vGTHWoELvnAFS9AVmWBmeCm2V7xoQ6pJ-_uCHMajDf3jv-SLV89E0Id_cE2SXp6u7kgjLeluAIBdNts-yEKAMeruONQBa_2hHcTset9LwM/s1600/Kaiser+healthcare+logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqFH6UeUXQHIIosxnMoH7_w7QmSi5hbbbhL4vGTHWoELvnAFS9AVmWBmeCm2V7xoQ6pJ-_uCHMajDf3jv-SLV89E0Id_cE2SXp6u7kgjLeluAIBdNts-yEKAMeruONQBa_2hHcTset9LwM/s400/Kaiser+healthcare+logo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Kaiser Health News:</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Kaiser Health News, a nonprofit health newsroom whose stories appear in news outlets nationwide, is an editorially independent part of the Kaiser Family Foundation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">February 7, 2017--Health and Human Services secretary nominee Tom Price showed little restraint in his personal stock trading during the three years that federal investigators were bearing down on a key House committee on which the Republican congressman served, a review of his financial disclosures shows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Price made dozens of health industry stock trades during a three-year investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission that focused on the Ways and Means Committee, according to financial disclosure records he filed with the House of Representatives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The investigation was considered the first test of a law passed to ban members of Congress and their staffs from trading stock based on insider information.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Price was never a target of the federal investigation, which scrutinized a top Ways and Means staffer, and no charges were brought. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But ethics experts say Price’s personal trading, even during the thick of federal pressure on his committee, shows he was unconcerned about financial investments that could create an appearance of impropriety.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“He should have known better,” Richard Painter, former White House chief ethics attorney under President George W. Bush and a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School said of Price’s conduct during the SEC inquiry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As Price awaits a Senate vote on his confirmation, Senate Democrats and a number of watchdog groups have asked the SEC to investigate whether Price engaged in insider trading with some of his trades in health care companies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Price has said he abided by all ethics rules, although he acknowledged to the Senate Finance Committee that he did not consult the House Ethics Committee on trades that have now become controversial.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The SEC’s inquiry began in 2013, as it battled Ways and Means for documents to develop its case.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A few weeks ago, the day before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the SEC quietly dropped its pursuit of committee documents without explanation, according to federal court records. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">No charges were brought against the staffer, Brian Sutter, who is now a health care lobbyist. Sutter’s lawyer declined to comment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist with Public Citizen, described Price’s volume of stock trades during the SEC inquiry as “brazen,” given the congressman’s access to nonpublic information affecting the companies’ fortunes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The public is seeing this and they really don’t like it,” said Holman whose watchdog group recently filed complaints about Price’s stock trading with both the SEC and the Office of Congressional Ethics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Trump administration officials and Price have dismissed questions that news reports and lawmakers have raised about stock trades coinciding with official actions to help certain companies, saying Price’s brokers chose the stocks independently and all of his conduct was transparent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">After acknowledging that he asked his broker to buy stock in an Australian drug company, he told the Senate Finance Committee that he did not direct his broker to make other trades.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“To the best of my knowledge, I have not undertaken such actions,” he wrote in response to finance committee questions. “I have abided by and adhered to all ethics and conflict of interest rules applicable to me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">An analysis of Price’s trades shows that he bought health stocks in 2007, the first year Congress financial disclosures are posted online. In 2011, the the first year Price sat on the health subcommittee, he traded no health-related stocks, according to his financial disclosures filed with Congress.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That same year, members were facing public criticism because of a book detailing how they could use inside information and a “60 Minutes” investigation focused on how members and staff could legally use inside information to gain from their own stock trades.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In 2012, President Barack Obama signed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act to rein in insider trading by members and require more disclosure. Public watchdog groups suggested at the time that the law would curb the practice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That year, after his one-year break in health care trades, Price resumed investing in health care companies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Along with investments in technology, financial services and retail stocks, he also bought and sold stock in companies that could be impacted by actions of his subcommittee, which has a role in determining rates the government pays under the Medicare program.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Health care firms spend heavily to influence members of Congress, lobbying on health matters, funding political campaigns and seeking favor with Medicare officials who decide how much the program will pay for certain drugs and devices. The Food and Drug Administration holds similar power, approving or putting conditions on drug and device use.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Beyond his personal investments in health care companies, Price has also advocated their interests in letters to officials and proposed laws, government records show.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In 2012, disclosure records show Price sold stock in several drug firms, including more than $110,000 worth of Amgen stock. Amgen’s stock price had steadily climbed out of a recession-level slump, but Price’s sale came a few weeks before the company pleaded guilty to illegally marketing an anemia drug.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By 2013, the health subcommittee was at the center of a major conflict between Medicare, which sets Medicare Advantage rates, and the insurance industry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Medicare issued a notice early that year announcing its intention to reduce Medicare Advantage rates by 2.3 percent as part of a major cost-cutting initiative.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That prompted fierce lobbying by the health insurance industry. Members of Congress, including Price, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3442731-Price-on-2013-Medicare-Advantage-Changes.html" target="_blank">wrote a letter</a> to Marilyn Tavenner, then acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, protesting the rate cut, saying the decrease would “disadvantage vulnerable beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Ultimately, Medicare decided not to cut rates but instead, to increase them. Yet an hour before Medicare announced the change, a Height Securities analyst fired off a “flash” report to 200 clients that touched off a surge of trading.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The analyst’s report said a political deal was hatched on Capitol Hill to prevent the cuts as a condition for moving forward on Tavenner’s confirmation. Medicare officials increased rates by nearly 4 percent, a change that would positively impact the bottom lines of health insurance companies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The SEC began looking for the leak’s source, and within weeks, FBI agents began interviewing staffers at the Ways and Means Committee, court records show.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">They discovered communications between Sutter and a health care lobbyist. The HHS Inspector General also began a probe, and federal prosecutors briefly examined the matter activity as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As the case unfolded, Price bought more health care-related stocks, according to his financial disclosures. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">He has testified that his broker directed all of the trades, except for his investments in Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australian company partly owned by Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), according to Collins’ disclosures. An HHS spokesman said Monday that Price held three broker-directed accounts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Ethics experts have said that Price should have further distanced himself by placing his assets in a blind trust.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On April 30, 2013, Price bought $2,093 worth of stocks in Incyte, a company that develops cancer drugs; $2,076 in Onyx Pharmaceuticals, a drugmaker that would soon merge with a larger drug firm; and $2,097 in Parexel International, a consultancy that helps drugs and devices win FDA approval, according to the financial disclosure records.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The same day, Price shed shares of Express Scripts, a drug management firm, and Danaher, which makes products hospitals and doctor’s offices using for testing and diagnostics. In August of that year, he bought a $2,429 stake in Jazz Pharmaceuticals, which makes sleep and cancer drugs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On May 6, 2014, the SEC served its first subpoena for the Ways and Means Committee documents. The committee launched a vigorous fight, appealing a federal district judge’s ruling that it should comply with the SEC subpoena.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Price continued his health stock trades, including $1,000 to $15,000 in drug firms Amgen, Eli Lilly and Co., Pfizer, Biogen and Bristol-Myers Squibb. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">He also bought stocks in Aetna, a major health insurer, and Athenahealth, which sells electronic medical record and medical billing software. In 2016, he also increased his investment in Innate Immunotherapeutics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The purchase became controversial because both he and Collins bought stock in a private placement <a href="http://khn.org/news/trumps-hhs-nominee-got-a-sweetheart-deal/" target="_blank">at a discounted price</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“You’re asking for trouble if you have access to nonpublic information about the health care industry and you’re buying and selling health care stocks,” Painter said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-7805929944724560262017-02-06T09:56:00.000-06:002017-02-06T09:56:59.888-06:00Sanders: Will Trump Really Take on Pharmaceutical Industry? I Hope So<div class="MsoNormal">
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWFy_cOtRM3eT77IXnRZXj0vnjONbqxtV470QWBKPGm-pVsCSM_fJDJYRdGbSIXQv9gDH2UjvR0sDdV6R6LiZGh5VLdcxa4Cvj2ZytxvDfY64Up1b3vDzIQ4oIVi7v2i3Pw40EYxV6qA3/s1600/senator+bernie+sanders.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Senator Sanders to introduce bill to lower prescription drug costs" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWFy_cOtRM3eT77IXnRZXj0vnjONbqxtV470QWBKPGm-pVsCSM_fJDJYRdGbSIXQv9gDH2UjvR0sDdV6R6LiZGh5VLdcxa4Cvj2ZytxvDfY64Up1b3vDzIQ4oIVi7v2i3Pw40EYxV6qA3/s400/senator+bernie+sanders.gif" title="Senator Bernie Sanders" width="264" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Senator Bernie Sanders</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i>Sanders-Cummings legislation to incorporate personal importation</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">WASHINGTON, February 4, 2017-- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says he will soon introduce legislation to lower prescription drug prices and hoped
that President Donald Trump would support the effort.<br />
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Sanders and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) are drafting legislation to
significantly bring down drug prices in the United States.<br />
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While five major drug manufacturers made more than $50 billion in profits in
2015, nearly 1 in 5 Americans could not afford the medicine they were
prescribed at a time when Americans pay, by far, the highest prices in the
world for prescription medicine. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipdJ1qQhFXZsdNgAwly76ubHQkqHgoUycJwsT1eNIaegg10LRRpWTx1SG3ksLAcRs5ck-IV4JxnTaJ3pyAE0GOo72kdzZSA8rhgHT0BofT7W3PBjqtF_nREzW8KP7PeRCHUMIYgrJfJfRb/s1600/Rep.+Cummings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipdJ1qQhFXZsdNgAwly76ubHQkqHgoUycJwsT1eNIaegg10LRRpWTx1SG3ksLAcRs5ck-IV4JxnTaJ3pyAE0GOo72kdzZSA8rhgHT0BofT7W3PBjqtF_nREzW8KP7PeRCHUMIYgrJfJfRb/s400/Rep.+Cummings.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Representative Cummings</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“It is beyond comprehension that while
Americans are dying because they cannot afford the medications they need, the
10 highest-paid CEOs in the pharmaceutical industry collectively made $327
million in 2015,” Sanders said.<br />
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“I look forward to working with President Trump on this issue if he is serious
about standing up to the pharmaceutical industry and reducing drug prices,”
Sanders said after Trump met with chief executives of several top drugmakers at
the White House Tuesday.<br />
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The Sanders and Cummings proposal would allow Medicare, the health care program
for seniors and people with disabilities, to negotiate with drugmakers for
lower prices. “The root of this problem is that we are the only major country
not to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. You can walk
into a pharmacy today and the price could be double or even three times what
you paid for the same medicine a year ago,” Sanders said.<br />
<br />
Their legislation also would allow the importation of less expensive but safe
and affordable drugs from other countries. The allergy treatment EpiPen, for
example, costs $638 in the U.S. compared to $293 in Canada. A popular drug for
high cholesterol, Crestor, costs $779 in the U.S. but $201 in Canada. Abilify,
a depression medication, costs $2,852 for a 90-day supply in the U.S. but only
$546 in Canada.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-20464457092527965012017-01-30T12:03:00.002-06:002017-01-30T12:03:53.120-06:00Blog Publisher calls for HHS Designee to state support for President Trump's campaign pledge on Personal Importation<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> <b>A medicine that is
unaffordable is inherently unavailable, and a medicine that is unavailable and
not able to be afforded is a medicine that is denied”</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">— Daniel Hines</span></i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, USA, January
30, 2017 /<a href="http://www.einpresswire.com/" target="_blank">EINPresswire.com</a>/
-- The Publisher of RxforAmericanHealth, <a href="http://americanrxbillofrights.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">AmericanRxBillofRights</a> and <a href="http://www.todaysseniorsnetwork.com/" target="_blank">TodaysSeniorsNetwork</a>,
has sent an open letter to President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services
Secretary Rep. Tom Price of Georgia seeking clarification on whether the
designee supports the President’s campaign pledge of a role for personal
importation of brand-name prescription medicines from Tier One countries as a
way to lower prescription drug costs.<br />
<br />
Hines also sent the letter to the members of the U.S. Senate.(<a href="http://rxforamericanhealth.blogspot.in/2017/01/does-rep-price-support-president-trumps.html" target="_blank">To read the letter, click here</a>).<br />
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“We applaud President Trump’s continued expressions of support for personal
importation as evidenced by his campaign pledge, and more recently, his sharp
criticism of the predatory pricing practices of Pharma that deny access to
literally millions of Americans to vital medicines because the high prices
render the medicines unaffordable and unavailable,” says Publisher Daniel
Hines.<br />
<br />
But, Hines continues, during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Rep.
Price, he and Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) engaged in an exchange based upon
Rep. Price’s continued references to his goal being ‘accessibility’ to health
care for all Americans.<br />
<br />
“Senator Sanders correctly pointed out that accessibility is not the same as
the ability to purchase or afford adequate medical care,” Hines notes.<br />
<br />
The problem, Hines explains, is that “a medicine that is unaffordable is
inherently unavailable, and a medicine that is unavailable and not able to be
afforded is a medicine that is denied.”<br />
<br />
“However, a recent article from Roll Call offers Rep. Price an opportunity to
shed light on his definition of accessibility to health care, “Hines says,
noting that he sought an exemption from the Food and Drug Administration
seizure of medicines of a constituent.<br />
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The exemption was sought because the constituent said the price of the medicine
in the U.S. was unaffordable and he turned to Canada to personally import the
medicine at a much lower cost.<br />
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Roll Call noted that “…In February 2006, Rep. Price’s office appealed to the
FDA on behalf of a constituent in need of a medicine for a surgery. While both
drugs were available for sale in the United States, the patient was trying to
import them from Canada, where they were presumably cheaper. The drugs were
being held in customs, and the FDA explained to Price that it wasn’t legal to
import the drugs manufactured outside of the country, even though there are
some exceptions to this policy…”<br />
<br />
Ironically, one of the exceptions under which personal importation is allowable
is if the medicine is unavailable, Hines explains.<br />
<br />
“This directly addresses the question of whether or not a medicine is
unavailable if it is unaffordable, or is it ‘accessible’ if available in the
U.S., but the patient can’t afford it.”<br />
<br />
Hines notes: “When Rep. Price wrote the letter, the FDA and U.S. Customs were
engaged in collusion for such seizures which were accompanied by a letter
threatening the patient who personally imported their medicines that by signing
the letter they were admitting they were guilty of violating the law, that they
were pledging that they would not attempt to import medicines in the future,
and, if they did, their signature on the Customs letter would constitute an
admission of guilt.”<br />
<br />
“I and other advocates working on behalf of the rights of Americans to have
true access to safe, affordable prescription medicines worked with contacts in
the Senate to have the seizures halted, and to also specifically deny funding
to Customs for such seizures,” Hines says.<br />
<br />
That is why we are asking Rep. Price to now explain if his definition of
‘access ’includes support of the rights of Americans to engage in personal
importation as he sought—and failed in-- on behalf of his constituent.<br />
<br />
Another question arises from a recent letter from many Democrat members of the
U.S. House of Representative to President Barrack Obama, in which they sought
to “… encourage your administration to explore implementing drug importation
rules that are already part of U.S. law. Under authority from the Medicare
Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, the Secretary of
Health and Human Services can certify the importation of prescription drugs
from other countries under specific qualifications. This regulatory action
would pose no risk to public health and safety and could result in a
significant reduction in the cost of prescription drugs to American families.”<br />
<br />
This leads to specific questions that should be addressed by the President and
Rep. Price:<br />
<br />
1. Will Rep. Price, if confirmed as HHS Secretary, continue his previously
stated support of personal importation as exampled by his letter on behalf of a
constituent turning to personal importation;<br />
2. Does Rep. Price believe that a prescription medicine is in and of itself
unavailable because it is unaffordable, thereby meeting the FDA’s stated and
printed decision that a medicine or device that is unavailable is thereby
exempt from restrictions of personal importation?<br />
3. Will Rep. Price, if confirmed, follow the directive and intent of Congress
as stated in the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act
of 2003?<br />
<br />
“The designee’s response to these questions is of prime importance,” Hines
concludes. “The fact is that personal importation of safe, affordable medicines
from Tier One countries is the most immediate relief from the predatory drug
pricing practices of Pharma.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Daniel Hines<br />
TodaysSeniorsNetwork<br />
6363992849<br />
<a href="http://www.einpresswire.com/contact_author/364290900">email us here</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-6849649764874204202017-01-30T09:37:00.001-06:002017-01-30T09:57:01.716-06:00Does Rep. Price support President Trump's campaign pledge for Personal Importation? An open letter to the President, Rep. Price and the U.S. Senate<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The following letter was sent to members of the United States Senate and to the President at the White House and Rep. Tom Price, the designee for Secretary of Health and Human Services:</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>President<br />The White House<br />1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW<br /> Washington, DC 20500</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">January 30, 2017<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS2q9gGWB-QOfON5m7n_mUS0me-wJm5P1Y5pCwms30sYQHCm72Oe_ETF6BV1_XpK2MyHQme1QWA100JzZ0t1FuUJuL7J7mrD5pW1jtyOVYnA3LXK4lVk9O8HSvkwgYFCPTCsyoOhJxn35P/s1600/capitol.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS2q9gGWB-QOfON5m7n_mUS0me-wJm5P1Y5pCwms30sYQHCm72Oe_ETF6BV1_XpK2MyHQme1QWA100JzZ0t1FuUJuL7J7mrD5pW1jtyOVYnA3LXK4lVk9O8HSvkwgYFCPTCsyoOhJxn35P/s400/capitol.JPG" width="400" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">An Open Letter to President Trump and Health and Human Services Designee Rep. Price:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I am writing in my capacity as publisher of the TodaysSeniorsNetwork series of web blogs to respectfully request clarification on the stance of Rep. Price as regards his support—or lack thereof—of personal importation of safe, affordable brand-name prescription medicines from licensed, registered pharmacies in Tier One Countries whose standards of safety of efficacy meet or exceed those of the U.S. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We applaud President Trump’s continued expressions of support for personal importation as evidenced by his campaign pledge, and more recently, his sharp criticism of the predatory pricing practices of Pharma that deny access to literally millions of Americans to vital medicines because the high prices render the medicines unaffordable and unavailable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Rep. Price, he and Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) engaged in an exchange based upon Rep. Price’s continued references to his goal being ‘accessibility’ to health care for all Americans. Senator Sanders pointed out that accessibility is not the same as the ability to purchase or afford adequate medical care, or a ‘million dollar’ home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">No other example so vividly illustrates this point as the cost of prescription medicines. A medicine that is unaffordable is inherently unavailable, and a medicine that is unavailable and not able to be afforded is a medicine that is denied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">However, a recent article from Roll Call offers Rep. Price an opportunity to shed light on his definition of accessibility to health care, based upon a situation involving his role in seeking an FDA exemption for a specific case of personally imported denied to a constituent because the medicine in question was also available in the U.S.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Roll Call noted that “…In February 2006, Rep. Price’s office appealed to the FDA on behalf of a constituent in need of a medicine for a surgery. While both drugs were available for sale in the United States, the patient was trying to import them from Canada, where they were presumably cheaper. The drugs were being held in customs, and the FDA explained to Price that it wasn’t legal to import the drugs manufactured outside of the country, even though there are some exceptions to this policy…” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ironically, one of the exceptions under which personal importation is allowable is if the medicine is unavailable. As explained above, this raises the question of whether or not a medicine is unavailable if it is unaffordable, or is it merely ‘accessible.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When Rep. Price wrote the letter, the FDA and U.S. Customs were engaged in collusion for such seizures which were accompanied by a letter threatening the patient who personally imported their medicines that by signing the letter they were admitting they were guilty of violating the law, that they were pledging that they would not attempt to import medicines in the future, and, if they did, their signature on the Customs letter would constitute an admission of guilt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For 16 years, as publisher of <a href="http://rxforamericanhealth.blogspot.com/">http:/RxforAmericanHealth.blogspot.com, </a><a href="http://americanrxbillofrights.blogspot.com/">http:AmericanRxBillofRights.blogspot.com</a>. and <a href="http://www.todaysseniorsnetwork.com/">www.TodaysSeniorsNetwork.com</a>, I and other advocates have worked on behalf of the rights of Americans to have access to safe, affordable prescription medicines. In this instance, we successfully worked with contacts in the Senate to have the seizures halted, and to also specifically deny funding to Customs for such seizures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That is why we are asking Rep. Price to now explain if his definition of ‘access ’includes support of the rights of Americans to engage in personal importation as he sought—and failed in-- on behalf of his constituent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In a recent letter from many Democrat members of the U.S. House of Representative to President Barrack Obama, they sought to “…<i> encourage your administration to explore implementing drug importation rules that are already part of U.S. law. Under authority from the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, the Secretary of Health and Human Services can certify the importation of prescription drugs from other countries under specific qualifications. This regulatory action would pose no risk to public health and safety and could result in a significant reduction in the cost of prescription drugs to American families.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This leads to three specific questions that should be addressed by the President and Rep. Price:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1. Will he, if confirmed as HHS Secretary, continue his previously stated support of personal importation;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">2. Does Rep. Price believe that a prescription medicine is in and of itself unavailable because it is unaffordable, thereby meeting the FDA’s stated and printed decision that a medicine or device that is unavailable is thereby exempt from restrictions of personal importation?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Will Rep. Price, if confirmed, follow the directive and intent of Congress as stated in the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These questions are respectfully submitted. We look forward to your response, and your stance on personal importation of safe, affordable medicines from Tier One countries—the most immediate relief from the predatory drug pricing practices of Pharma.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Daniel Hines</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-31305643270291107052017-01-14T12:28:00.000-06:002017-01-14T12:28:58.189-06:00Grassley, Casey, Brown Re-introduce Popular Bipartisan Bill to Help Pharmacists Provide Medical Services to Older Americans in Under-served Areas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT9uqMmVN7mzJTjxgcfAXg-_uNHvWTffihDVCax3go8qR6YGQNl9xnNHJOs96dmZ51QXvkisrVMgjMjSjqXLXySIyeSsH7aU-KKL3K4iytya3ktlUc0r5bKJZhVCeZI1fgCk5SYRvT_KOa/s1600/us+capitol.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Grassley, Casey, Brown introduce pharmacy access legislation" border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT9uqMmVN7mzJTjxgcfAXg-_uNHvWTffihDVCax3go8qR6YGQNl9xnNHJOs96dmZ51QXvkisrVMgjMjSjqXLXySIyeSsH7aU-KKL3K4iytya3ktlUc0r5bKJZhVCeZI1fgCk5SYRvT_KOa/s400/us+capitol.jpg" title="US Capitol" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">WASHINGTON, January 14, 2017– Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa),
Bob Casey (D-Penn.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and fellow senators today
re-introduced their popular bipartisan legislation to encourage pharmacists to
serve older Americans in communities lacking easy access to doctors or where
pharmacists are more convenient to visit for certain services than doctors.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“A lot of people in rural Iowa have easier access to a
pharmacist than a doctor,” <b>Grassley said</b>. “Where that pharmacist
is licensed to provide a service, Medicare ought to pay the pharmacist for
it. That’s what this bill does. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“It’s good for pharmacists because they get paid for providing
services to rural seniors. It’s good for rural seniors because they keep
access to their local pharmacist and don’t have to go to the doctor for
straightforward medication management.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Across the country and in Pennsylvania pharmacists play a
critical role in helping seniors receive access to routine healthcare services
like wellness checks,” <b>Casey said</b>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“This legislation will aid those in rural communities who may
not live in close proximity to the doctor but do have regular contact with
their pharmacist. I’m hopeful that Congress will move forward on this
commonsense legislation in the coming year.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“Seniors in rural Ohio shouldn’t have to travel long distances
to see their doctor for a simple health screening when the pharmacist down the
street can offer the same services,” <b>said Brown</b>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“We can better serve our seniors and taxpayers by cutting
through the red tape and giving seniors more choice on where they go for care”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The <i>Pharmacy and Medically Underserved Areas Enhancement
Act, </i>S.109, has 27 original cosponsors. It encourages pharmacists to
offer health care services such as health and wellness screenings,
immunizations and diabetes management by authorizing Medicare payments for
those services where pharmacists are already licensed under state law to provide
them. Most states already allow pharmacists to provide these services but
there currently is no way for pharmacists to receive Medicare reimbursement for
providing them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The bill is supported by organizations including the Iowa
Pharmacy Association, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, the
Patient Access to Pharmacists’ Care Coalition, the American Pharmacists
Association and Kmart. Hundreds of people, including Iowa pharmacy
students, have contacted Grassley’s office in support of the measure,. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A companion bill is planned in the House of Representatives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-6747463091287793092017-01-03T13:38:00.000-06:002017-01-03T13:38:34.062-06:00High prices force millions to buy medicine outside U.S.<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd89VDODspXSkHT8bXGvad2FTODvVuw3fySU-XxVtkXmq0UCgM6Wv1XdDQPZxjBtCyNYcnHj9VS9hFdn8r6LA0Ko4sA-xDW76brfeIhsq7kYBmkjOY4vefxOwCuW4RTEOboEdZTikCCfxd/s1600/Prescription+Drugs%252C+NIH+funding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="High Drug Costs force Americans to purchase outside US" border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd89VDODspXSkHT8bXGvad2FTODvVuw3fySU-XxVtkXmq0UCgM6Wv1XdDQPZxjBtCyNYcnHj9VS9hFdn8r6LA0Ko4sA-xDW76brfeIhsq7kYBmkjOY4vefxOwCuW4RTEOboEdZTikCCfxd/s400/Prescription+Drugs%252C+NIH+funding.jpg" title="American buying prescription drugs" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><b><span style="font-size: xx-small;">by </span></b></span><b><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 107%;">Rachel Bluth, Kaiser Health News</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 107%;">12:08 a.m. EST December 22, 2016</span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As drug prices have spiraled upward in the past decade, tens of millions of generally law-abiding Americans have committed an illegal act in response: They have bought prescriptions outside the U.S. and imported them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">One was Debra Miller of Collinston, Louisiana, who traveled to Mexico four times a year for 10 years to get diabetes and blood pressure medicine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">She quit in 2011 after the border patrol caught her returning to the United States with a three-month supply that had cost her $40. The former truck driver drew a stern warning not to do it again, but got to keep her pills.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“I didn’t know what I did wrong,” said Miller, 51, who now pays $120 a month at Walmart for her five medications while she waits to join Medicaid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s no secret that some Americans regularly buy prescription drugs on the internet or while traveling abroad. But the popularity of the approach is underscored by the results of a Kaiser Family Foundation </span><a href="http://files.kff.org/attachment/Kaiser-Health-Tracking-Poll-November-2016-Topline" title="http://files.kff.org/attachment/Kaiser-Health-Tracking-Poll-November-2016-Topline"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">poll</span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> conducted in November. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Eight percent of respondents said they or someone in their household had imported a drug at some point, a figure that would translate to about 19 million adults in the U.S. based on current Census population estimates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The proportion found in the poll may be low, said Andrew Zullo, a clinical pharmacist and a doctoral student at the Brown University School of Public Health who has researched the subject. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“People are uncomfortable talking about the cost of their own health care, and they don’t want to admit they are struggling to pay for their own meds,” he said. Some may also be reluctant to reveal they’ve broken the law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Still, 8 percent is far higher than in surveys conducted by government interviewers, which suggested the number was about 2 percent in 2011 — though the government survey focused only on purchases in the previous 12 months. The Kaiser poll queried a nationally representative sample of 1,202 adults.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The internet has made it easier for Americans to buy prescription drugs abroad, frequently from disreputable sources, according to Jaime Ruiz, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Food and Drug Administration has cautioned that many online pharmacies aren’t what they seem. An </span><a href="http://www.fda.gov/newsevents/newsroom/pressannouncements/ucm398499.htm" title="http://www.fda.gov/newsevents/newsroom/pressannouncements/ucm398499.htm"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">international crackdown</span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> in 2014 found that many packages of medicines purportedly from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom contained drugs from other countries, including India, China and Laos.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Zullo acknowledged that imported medications could be inferior or expired. Some could be </span><a href="http://www.fda.gov/aboutfda/transparency/basics/ucm194906.htm" title="http://www.fda.gov/aboutfda/transparency/basics/ucm194906.htm"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">counterfeits</span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">. But many medicines purchased from another country are the same as the ones patients buy in the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When purchased </span><a href="http://www.aarp.org/health/drugs-supplements/info-03-2011/lowercost-drugs-from-canada.html" title="http://www.aarp.org/health/drugs-supplements/info-03-2011/lowercost-drugs-from-canada.html"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">outside the country</span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, many prescription medicines cost half or less than they do in the states.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">According to the FDA’s </span><a href="http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/Transparency/Basics/ucm194904.htm" title="http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/Transparency/Basics/ucm194904.htm"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">website</span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, it is generally illegal for Americans to import drugs into the states for personal use. The law isn’t rigorously enforced, in part because it is difficult to monitor the entry of medicine in suitcases and small packages. But in 2015 the FDA implemented a </span><a href="http://www.rxrights.org/rule-regarding-the-destruction-of-imported-medicine-released/" title="http://www.rxrights.org/rule-regarding-the-destruction-of-imported-medicine-released/"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">rule</span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> that would give government border inspectors expanded authority to destroy drugs imported for personal use at their point of entry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In the poll, people who had imported medicines ranged from college students in their 20s to retirees in their 80s. They bought medications to treat chronic conditions — such as high blood pressure and thyroid problems — as well as acute problems such as sinus infections and acne.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Amanda Mazumder, a 27-year-old graphic designer in St. Paul, Minnesota, was stressed out by the murky legality of the situation when she tried buying birth control pills while in college five years ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“That was the most difficult part, trying to be an honest citizen but also getting an affordable prescription,” she said. She couldn’t afford to pay $150 a month for her birth control, but found an online Canadian pharmacy that sold her a three-month supply for $60.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bobby Grant of Los Angeles has relied on foreign pharmacies for seven years to get medicine for his partner’s severe asthma. Grant, 38, travels internationally for his job producing live shows. Each time he’s in Mexico or France, he buys 10-packs of inhalers and 20-packs of nebulizer solution for a fraction of what they would cost in the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">His partner’s asthma would require inhalers costing $300 a month if she purchased them here. Grant estimates he saves at least $2,500 a year by buying the drugs overseas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“I love her to death,” he said. “I’ll do whatever I can to take her stress away.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Kaiser Health Network’s coverage of prescription drug development, costs and pricing is supported in part by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Editor’s note</span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://khn.org/" title="http://khn.org/"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Kaiser Health News </span></a><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">is a nonprofit news service committed to in-depth coverage of health care policy and politics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-58396924305396353932016-12-26T13:06:00.000-06:002016-12-26T13:06:17.525-06:00Brand Name Drug Prices Increase Nearly 130 Times Faster Than Inflation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggj5euLgb5zhbiNUDEwTkwd2_Wm_kqBL3cbjx38vkABI54VNs_rGLDABt_V6Fg5JxbKZwuDUlcEPXd2U5fVg4kP9yvI8hQYuJT2aomMeao4fdNDI0tqEr9rpAQ8sMSu8uoCJ6Sge0dInQu/s1600/Ben+Franklin%252C+money+demand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggj5euLgb5zhbiNUDEwTkwd2_Wm_kqBL3cbjx38vkABI54VNs_rGLDABt_V6Fg5JxbKZwuDUlcEPXd2U5fVg4kP9yvI8hQYuJT2aomMeao4fdNDI0tqEr9rpAQ8sMSu8uoCJ6Sge0dInQu/s400/Ben+Franklin%252C+money+demand.jpg" width="308" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"><i>New AARP report shows fourth straight year of double-digit price average annual increases for widely used brand name drugs</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Washington/PRNewswire-USNewswire/, December 2016-- Retail prices for brand name prescription drugs widely used by older Americans rose by an average of 15.5% in 2015—almost 130 times faster than the 0.1% general inflation rate—according to a new AARP Public Policy Institute (PPI) report <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">AARP's </span><a href="http://www.aarp.org/rxpricewatch" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rx Price Watch Report: Trends in Retail Prices of Brand Name Prescription Drugs Widely Used by Older Americans, 2006-2015</span></b></a><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">,</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> shows that the average annual cost for one brand name drug used on a chronic basis now exceeds $5,800.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">For the average older American taking 4.5 prescription drugs per month, this translates into an average annual cost of therapy of $26,000*. This amount exceeds the median income of $24,150 for Medicare beneficiaries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/449156/AARP_2016_Rx_Price_Watch_Report.jpg?w=1600" title="Expand, share and download"><o:p></o:p></a></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhH22f1LtslFb_z_5Q-wBCuGOlIKYaE5gutnyQePsOAu6Ex8RvNo5db7MPHSfEfug9RAvLyYsmbsXgdhZQUlqsgqUB-jZdubn0mlWIj0GCmjAMyp4MODbxeuiIOJHhi1als6QN_P9sFsKa/s1600/aarp+chart+of+price+increases.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhH22f1LtslFb_z_5Q-wBCuGOlIKYaE5gutnyQePsOAu6Ex8RvNo5db7MPHSfEfug9RAvLyYsmbsXgdhZQUlqsgqUB-jZdubn0mlWIj0GCmjAMyp4MODbxeuiIOJHhi1als6QN_P9sFsKa/s400/aarp+chart+of+price+increases.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Retail Prices for 6 Brand Name Drugs Increased by 500%+ from 2006-2015<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">"This new report once again highlights the high and unrelenting price increases that are shockingly common in the pharmaceutical market," said AARP Chief Public Policy Officer Debra Whitman. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">"What's particularly remarkable is that these incredibly high price increases are still occurring in the face of the intense public and congressional criticism of prescription drug pricing practices."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Highlights of the Rx Price Watch Report</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The average annual retail price increase for widely used brand name prescription drugs was more than <b>two and a half times higher</b> in 2015 (15.5%) than in 2006 (5.9%).<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Brand name drug prices increased almost <b>130 times faster</b> than general inflation in 2015 (15.5% vs 0.1%).<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In 2015, the average annual retail cost of one brand name medication used to treat a chronic health condition more than $5,800, compared with nearly $1,800 in 2006.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Retail prices increased for 97% of the 268 brand name prescription drugs in the study's market basket.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Seven widely used brand name drugs had average annual retail price increases of over 50% in 2015.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Five of the six drugs with the highest cumulative price increases over the study period were marketed by Valeant Pharmaceuticals. The retail price of Valeant's anti-anxiety drug, Ativan 1 mg tablets, <b>increased by 2,873%</b> between 2006 and 2015.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">"Prescription drug therapy is not affordable when its cost exceeds the patient's entire income," said Leigh Purvis, Director of Health Services Research, AARP Public Policy Institute, and co-author of the report.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> "Even if patients are fortunate enough to have good health care coverage, high prescription drug costs translate into higher out-of-pocket costs—especially for those who pay a percentage of drug costs rather than a fixed copayment—as well as higher premiums, deductibles, and other forms of cost-sharing."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rx Price Watch Report Methodology<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">AARP's Public Policy Institute, in collaboration with the </span><a href="http://www.pharmacy.umn.edu/prime/" target="_blank"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">PRIME</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> Institute at the University of Minnesota</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">, developed a market basket of 268 brand name prescription drug products widely used by older Americans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Using data from the Truven Health MarketScan® Research Databases, the report analyzed retail price changes between 2006 and 2015 for the drug products in the market basket. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The medications include products in 49 therapeutic categories used to treat common and often chronic health conditions, including high cholesterol, diabetes, and hypertension.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This report is the latest in the AARP Public Policy Institute's Rx Price Watch series. Separate reports analyze price changes for widely used generic and specialty drug products. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The series also analyzes the price changes for an overall market basket (i.e., brand name, generic, and specialty drug products combined) to reflect the overall market impact of drug price changes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The full report can be found here: </span><a href="http://www.aarp.org/rxpricewatch" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">http://www.aarp.org/rxpricewatch</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">*These prices reflect the total costs for specific prescriptions and may not reflect the actual out-of-pocket costs (such as a copay) that a consumer would pay at the pharmacy.</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-82928909573705467122016-12-20T12:47:00.002-06:002016-12-20T12:47:49.897-06:00Congressional letter to President chance for Obama, Trump to lower prescription drug prices by personal importation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLxuWLB9aYNvgdinTF2pELAd2loG-Bbwp10_xnINd_h5RAJ5mhQ4rPbI8XPSygMGA8GfCD0wvkXXekrMVxPskb0frO9NhTWRynLhvQpuK3J69gDuMIfxZlRa1Mb7ZqGo3G6g_dxnxc7k2I/s1600/us+capitol.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Trump, Obama urged, cooperate to allow personally imported meds" border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLxuWLB9aYNvgdinTF2pELAd2loG-Bbwp10_xnINd_h5RAJ5mhQ4rPbI8XPSygMGA8GfCD0wvkXXekrMVxPskb0frO9NhTWRynLhvQpuK3J69gDuMIfxZlRa1Mb7ZqGo3G6g_dxnxc7k2I/s400/us+capitol.JPG" title="US Capitol" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;"><i>An unaffordable medicine is
unavailable in and of itself because of the price, and a medicine that is not
taken because it is unavailable is of no value</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">— Daniel Hines<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">ST. LOUIS, MO, USA, December 20,
2016 /<a href="http://www.einpresswire.com/" target="_blank">EINPresswire.com</a>/
-- The publisher of <a href="http://rxforamericanhealth.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rx for American Health</a> and the <a href="http://americanrxbillofrights.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">American Rx
Bill of Rights</a> says that a Congressional letter sent to President
Barrack Obama from 33 Democrat Congressmen requesting him to use executive
action on a number of fronts to lower prescription drug costs offers a chance
at a cooperative effort by the President and President-elect Donald Trump that
could provide relief for millions of Americans from the abusive pricing
practices of Pharma by jointly recognizing the rights of Americans to have
access to safe, affordable and authentic personally imported medicines.<br />
<br />
Daniel Hines notes that both the President and the President-elect have
expressed their support of a role for personal importation.<br />
<br />
“In 2008, then-Candidate Obama pledged to support the personal importation of
safe, affordable brand-name prescription medicines from licensed-registered
pharmacies in Tier One Countries whose standards of safety and efficacy meet or
exceed those of the U.S.,” Hines notes.<br />
<br />
“Significantly, President-Elect Trump has called for ‘Removal of barriers to
entry into <a href="http://rxforamericanhealth.blogspot.com/2016/12/congressional-request-to-president.html" target="_blank">free markets for drug providers</a> that offer safe,
reliable and cheaper products,’” Hines notes.<br />
<br />
Also, in an interview upon his selection as TIME Magazine’s ‘Person of the
Year,’ the President-elect said that his intent remains to “lower prescription
drug costs” although he admitted that he still hadn’t decided upon just how to
do it.<br />
<br />
“In yet another twist in this strangest of Presidential elections, the
President-Elect could actually offer President Obama a chance at establishing a
favorable part of the Obama legacy—a role in which both men can exhibit the
type of bi-partisanship that would reflect favorably upon them, all the while
offering millions of Americans price relief from the abusive pricing practices
of Pharma by recognition Executive recognition of the rights of Americans to
have access to safe, affordable and authentic personally imported medicines,”
Hines says.<br />
<br />
The key, Hines says, is for President Obama to sign an executive order
requested by the Congressional letter to “ explore implementing drug
importation rules that are already part of U.S. law. Under authority from the
Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, the
Secretary of Health and Human Services can certify the importation of
prescription drugs from other countries under specific qualifications. This
regulatory action would pose no risk to public health and safety and could
result in a significant reduction in the cost of prescription drugs to American
families.”<br />
<br />
This should be followed by the President-elect openly declaring his support of
the President’s action, accompanied by a vow to let the order stand as a part
of his campaign pledge to support personal importation and to explicitly
legalize the personal importation of medicine from licensed registered
pharmacies in (Tier One) countries whose standards of safety and efficacy meet
or exceed those of the U.S.<br />
<br />
Hines notes that Candidate-Trump had at one time vowed to rescind every
Executive Order issued by President Obama, but since then, President-Elect
Trump has softened his stance, saying he would only rescind those that he
considered ‘illegal.’<br />
<br />
“A cooperative action by the President and the President-elect would enable
both men to fulfill stances taken during their respective campaigns to take
actions to lower prescription drug prices,’ Hines explains.<br />
<br />
He notes that Candidate Obama openly supported establishing a role for Personal
Importation of safe, affordable prescription medicines from licensed,
registered pharmacies in Tier One Countries whose standards of safety and
efficacy meet or exceed those of the U.S. in 2008, only to abandon his stance
under pressure from Pharma to abandon his stance during behind-closed doors
meetings leading to the Affordable Care Act, which itself now faces
dismantling.<br />
<br />
“By issuing the executive order requested in the Congressional letter, the
President could ensure a part of his legacy by acting on behalf of millions of
Americans who simply cannot afford their medicines. An unaffordable medicine is
unavailable in and of itself because of the price, and a medicine that is not
taken because it is unavailable is of no value,” he says.<br />
<br />
“For the President-elect, cite your campaign pledge to support personal
importation, let President Obama know of your support of his issuance of the
Executive Order, and that there will be no attempts to set it aside by your
Administration,” Hines says.<br />
<br />
Hines notes that such action also gives the President-elect a unique
opportunity to set a tone for his Administration ensuring that unelected
bureaucrats of the Food and Drug Administration are subject to the clearly
expressed intent of Congress, not the whims of a particular industry segment.<br />
<br />
“That is why we urge the President and the President-elect to take the actions
necessary to compel the Secretary of HHS to act , and to do so in a fair and
partial manner that reflects that personally imported authentic medicines at
potential savings of up to 60 percent are being denied to Americans, or for
those who do engage in personal importation of their medicines, their medicines
are subject to potential seizure and destruction only because of labeling
differences that are required by the countries of origin of the imported
medicine. The seizures can take place irrespective of the authenticity of the
medicines,” Hines continues.<br />
<br />
“Also, for President-Elect Trump, cooperation and support of such an Executive
Order will illustrate that he is concerned about the health and well-being of
Americans, and that he recognizes that lack of access to affordable medicines
is the wind that reaps the whirlwind of Pharma pricing abuses, and consequences
of costly, even possibly life-threatening health conditions that could have
been avoided,” Hines concludes.<br />
<br />
The full Subtitle of the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and
Modernization Act of 2003 follows:<br />
Subtitle C: Importation of Prescription Drugs - (Sec. 1121) Directs the
Secretary to promulgate regulations permitting pharmacists and wholesalers to
import prescription drugs from Canada into the United States. Sets forth
specified provisions respecting: (1) importer and foreign seller recordkeeping
and information requirements; (2) qualified laboratory drug testing; (3)
registration with the Secretary of Canadian sellers; and (4) approved labeling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Daniel Hines<br />
RxforAmericanHealth<br />
636-399-2849<br />
<a href="http://www.einpresswire.com/contact_author/358825078">email us here</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-72562341662025112802016-12-19T14:31:00.000-06:002016-12-19T14:31:00.756-06:00Congressional request to President Obama offers chance for cooperative effort by Obama-Trump to lower prescription drug prices via personally imported medicines<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Me9zT3P6ilwEvGcc2YA-5T5vPI9ho3PHdxwXR0H0j6qtQix8FA2N0WNxOFAfKG81vQqX7KoktmKZsTFXN8mgV-AgZovCa8Tfm4sLq0ytS2-S377CkdV-r7owK7MGeFzVPQVkRds7DYN1/s1600/donald-j-trump-1342298_1280.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="How Trump and Obama could cooperate to lower drug costs" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Me9zT3P6ilwEvGcc2YA-5T5vPI9ho3PHdxwXR0H0j6qtQix8FA2N0WNxOFAfKG81vQqX7KoktmKZsTFXN8mgV-AgZovCa8Tfm4sLq0ytS2-S377CkdV-r7owK7MGeFzVPQVkRds7DYN1/s400/donald-j-trump-1342298_1280.png" title="Donald Trump" width="322" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">In an interview upon his selection as TIME Magazine’s</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">‘Person of the Year,’ President-elect Donald
Trump said that his intent remains to “lower prescription drug costs” although
he admitted that he still hadn’t decided upon just how to do it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The President-elect has also repeatedly expressed his
‘admiration’ for President Obama, admitting that he was surprised at the good,
even friendly, relationship that is emerging between them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is ironic since during the Campaign, Candidate-Trump
vowed to rescind every Executive Order issued by President Obama. Since then, President-Elect Trump has
softened his stance, saying he would only rescind those that he considered
‘illegal.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Therein lies what may be the key to opening the door to allow
President-elect Trump to achieve his goal to lower prescription drug costs,
thanks to his new-found friendly relationship with President Obama.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And, in yet another twist in this strangest of Presidential
elections, he may actually offer President Obama a chance at establishing what
could be a part of the Obama legacy—a role in which both men can exhibit the
type of bi-partisanship that would reflect favorably upon them, all the while
offering millions of Americans price relief from the abusive pricing practices
of Pharma, i.e., a recognition of the rights of American patients to have
access to safe, affordable and authentic personally imported medicines.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The opportunity is actually created by an October 2016 letter
from 33 Democrat Congressmen to President Obama requesting him to use executive
action on a number of fronts to lower prescription drug costs, and to prevent
further outrageous unmerited price increases by Pharma.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It has become increasingly apparent that personal importation
of prescription medicines is the only readily available and most immediate
relief to Pharma pricing practices as evidenced by the Representatives’ request
to “…<i> encourage your administration to explore implementing drug
importation rules that are already part of U.S. law. Under authority from the
Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, the
Secretary of Health and Human Services can certify the importation of
prescription drugs from other countries under specific qualifications. This
regulatory action would pose no risk to public health and safety and could
result in a significant reduction in the cost of prescription drugs to American
families.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">It is significant that the letter
indicates the complete lack of adherence by both the Bush II and Obama
Administrations to the intent of Congress by allowing the Secretary of Health
and Human Services (HHS) to ignore the specific letter of the law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">That is why we urge the President
and the President-elect to take the actions necessary to compel the Secretary
to act , and to do so in a fair and partial manner that reflects that
personally imported authentic medicines at potential savings of up to 60 percent
are being denied to Americans, or for those who do engage in personal
importation of their medicines, their medicines are subject to potential
seizure and destruction only because of labeling differences that are required
by the countries of origin of the imported medicine. The seizures can take place irrespective of
the authenticity of the medicines.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">By issuing the executive order
requested by the Congressional letter, President Obama will act on behalf of millions of Americans who
simply cannot afford their medicines. <b>An
unaffordable medicine is unavailable in and of itself because of the price, and
a medicine that is not taken because it is unavailable is of no value.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">For the President-elect, cite your
campaign pledge to support personal importation, let President Obama know of
your support of his issuance of an Executive Order to ensure that unelected
bureaucrats are subject to the clearly expressed intent of Congress, not the
whims of a particular industry segment, that there will be attempts to
set-aside such an Executive Order by your administration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In 2008, then-Candidate Obama pledged to support the personal
importation of safe, affordable brand-name prescription medicines from
licensed-registered pharmacies in Tier One Countries whose standards of safety
and efficacy meet or exceed those of the U.S.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It seemed at the time that personal importation, which had
long been practiced by millions of Americans seeking the health benefits made
possible by access to their maintenance medicines was finally about to be a
part of a policy to lower prescription drug costs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), a long-time supporter of
Personal Importation, told me, after a hearing she was holding in St. Louis on
Medicare Advantage plan abuses, that
legislation allowing personal importation of medicines would be one of the
first pieces of legislation that the newly elected President Obama would sign,
and it would be on his desk within 48 hours of his inauguration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That never happened.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Instead, President Obama Administration, faced with challenges
on a number of fronts, and acting in the belief that his legacy would be based
upon passage and implementation of a sweeping health care bill, engaged in secret, behind-closed-doors
meetings with the very forces of Pharma who agreed to not launch ‘Harry-Louise’
type of campaign that derailed ‘Hillarycare’, in return for shaping many
provisions of the law that were favorable to it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">For President-Elect Trump, cooperation and support of such an
Executive Order will illustrate that you are concerned about the health and
well-being of Americans, and that you recognize that lack of access to
affordable medicines is the wind that reaps the whirlwind of Pharma pricing
abuses, and consequences of costly, even possibly life-threatening health
conditions that could have been avoided. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><b>The full Subtitle of the <i>Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement
and Modernization Act of 2003 follows:</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Subtitle C: Importation of Prescription Drugs</span></b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> -
(Sec. 1121) Directs the Secretary to promulgate regulations permitting
pharmacists and wholesalers to import prescription drugs from Canada into the
United States. Sets forth specified provisions respecting: (1) importer and
foreign seller recordkeeping and information requirements; (2) qualified
laboratory drug testing; (3) registration with the Secretary of Canadian
sellers; and (4) approved labeling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-758637551015208162016-12-02T12:24:00.001-06:002016-12-02T12:24:48.833-06:00President-Elect Trump Urged: Act on Campaign Pledge to allow personal importation of safe, affordable medicines<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBjvPDOenXZcwJuU5y86kY3vVsol6ux4mg1GM5cMH7s7qoruJhafYi9YOPbW_V_QJul4jum32tcsHYypFe-SMqJgVQhtKXpLTqJbVXgAkpQTzPrvtb8eF9LLxbkYeEzZ3s9wWPoPkCt4JX/s1600/rxrights+logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="88" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBjvPDOenXZcwJuU5y86kY3vVsol6ux4mg1GM5cMH7s7qoruJhafYi9YOPbW_V_QJul4jum32tcsHYypFe-SMqJgVQhtKXpLTqJbVXgAkpQTzPrvtb8eF9LLxbkYeEzZ3s9wWPoPkCt4JX/s400/rxrights+logo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Minneapolis, MN, (December 2, 2016)—President-elect Donald </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />Trump is being urged to act </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0QDBaBtzDAk3ceUTJItbGva9XPQb9g0F_1-K_gpl_-P1B7omyck2qNlKWkmdxFnD0bjgEP9qcHy3uOLR9bE92QDZYFlX71S6bjuqxBsKqcIJxerHzyHfvBtnN3Fw29TW6Mby3MuDO8d2N/s1600/rxforamericanhealth+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0QDBaBtzDAk3ceUTJItbGva9XPQb9g0F_1-K_gpl_-P1B7omyck2qNlKWkmdxFnD0bjgEP9qcHy3uOLR9bE92QDZYFlX71S6bjuqxBsKqcIJxerHzyHfvBtnN3Fw29TW6Mby3MuDO8d2N/s320/rxforamericanhealth+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
immediately upon assuming office to explicitly legalize
the personal importation of medicine from licensed registered pharmacies in
(Tier One) countries whose standards of safety and efficacy meet or exceed
those of the U.S.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In an open letter to the President-elect from Lee Graczyk,
lead organizer of RxRights, and Daniel Hines, publisher of
TodaysSeniorsNetwork, RxforAmericanHealth and the American Rx Bill of Rights blogs,
cite his campaign pledge to support the importation of safe prescription
medicines from other countries, and that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry has
been instrumental in blocking legal importation even though untold numbers of
Americans already safely rely upon personal importation which is subject to
seizure and possible destruction, even of authentic medicines.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The letter is based upon a long-standing mantra of
supporters that a medicine that is unaffordable is, in and of itself, unavailable,
thereby leading to harm to the health and well-being the medicines are
developed to prevent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The letter notes that “ Virtually all medicines the FDA
would deny access to are identical to those manufactured in FDA-approved
facilities outside the U.S.—the only difference being the label, which reflects
requirements of the medicine’s country of origin.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The letter points out that hours of Congressional hearings
about the pricing abuses of Pharma have had no impact on the costs of
prescription medicines, all the while that
an October <a href="http://kff.org/health-costs/poll-finding/kaiser-health-tracking-poll-october-2016/">Kaiser
Health Tracking Poll</a> found 74 percent of the American public believes high
prescription drug prices are a priority issue.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Personal importation
is an immediate strategy to allow competition and access to safe affordable
medications,” the letter says.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A copy of the letter follows:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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An Open Letter to President-Elect Donald Trump:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dear Mr. President-Elect:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The nation anxiously looks to you for leadership on the many
challenges our country faces in the months and years ahead. One major challenge
is access to affordable medicine.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before the 2016 election, you made a number of statements
regarding Americans' need for affordable prescription drugs. In particular:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.3in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->You noted the U.S. pharmaceutical industry has
been instrumental in blocking importation legislation (even though untold
numbers of Americans already rely on importation).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.3in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->You said you would support the importation of
safe prescription drugs from other countries.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
An October <a href="http://kff.org/health-costs/poll-finding/kaiser-health-tracking-poll-october-2016/">Kaiser
Health Tracking Poll</a> found 74 percent of the American public believes high
prescription drug prices are a priority issue. Prescription drug prices in the
U.S. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescription_drug_prices_in_the_United_States">are
the highest in the world</a>. Americans often pay <a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/518a3cfee4b0a77d03a62c98/t/57d3ca9529687f1a257e9e26/1473497751062/2015+Comparative+Price+Report+09.09.16.pdf">twice
as much or more</a> than other countries. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Hours of Congressional hearings on outrageous prescription
medicine prices have not yielded a speedy solution for citizens struggling to
afford medicine. Personal importation is an immediate strategy to allow
competition and access to safe affordable medications.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Consider these points:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.3in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->The Food and Drug Administration currently
allows personal importation of prescription medicines if they are unavailable
in this country or if they’re carried across the border in person by the
patient. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.3in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->Virtually all medicines the FDA would deny
access to are identical to those manufactured in FDA-approved facilities
outside the U.S.—the only difference being the label, which reflects
requirements of the medicine’s country of origin.<u><o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.3in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->PhRMA has a proven record of <a href="http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2010/02/12/the-legacy-of-billy-tauzin-the-white-house-phrma-deal/">undue
and troubling influence in healthcare policy</a>.<u><o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";">o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->The lobbying group <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/high-drug-prices-Obama/2012/06/09/id/441767/">met
with the President of the United States</a> in closed-door meetings to
influence prescription policy related to the Affordable Care Act. <u><o:p></o:p></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-list: l0 level2 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";">o<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]-->PhRMA and its front groups influence the U.S.
House of Representatives and the Senate through <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=2016&ind=H04">millions
of dollars of campaign contributions</a>. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>Your administration has the authority
to address the public health crisis created by out of control drug prices. We
urge you to act to explicitly legalize the personal importation of medicine
from licensed registered pharmacies in (Tier One) countries whose standards of
safety and efficacy meet or exceed those of the U.S. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sincerely,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lee Graczyk,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lead Organizer<br /><a href="http://rxrights.org/" target="_blank">RxRights.org</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Daniel Hines<br />Publisher<br /><a href="http://todaysseniorsnetwork.com/">TodaysSeniorsNetwork.com</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://rxforamericanhealth.blotspot.com/">RxforAmericanHealth.blotspot.com</a><br /><a href="http://americanrxbillofrights.blogspot.com/">AmericanRxBillofRights.blogspot.com</a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-40646639288754521392016-12-01T11:17:00.000-06:002016-12-01T11:17:32.059-06:00New Survey: Consumers Hold Drug Companies Responsible for High Prices and Out-of-Pocket Costs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1B70YoXK0p9IoqF0quJkJYxIj9BEB_6IsqLWgv9H-Bm2Lu0sefyDqm302CRE4jS_0cKAeyPyEreL3PLpliLu8K232OUVfzvaSvQjG6MCJrPbW1VGegu66k4LereUGeydDNrHUPqRyZw5_/s1600/%2524100+bill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1B70YoXK0p9IoqF0quJkJYxIj9BEB_6IsqLWgv9H-Bm2Lu0sefyDqm302CRE4jS_0cKAeyPyEreL3PLpliLu8K232OUVfzvaSvQjG6MCJrPbW1VGegu66k4LereUGeydDNrHUPqRyZw5_/s400/%2524100+bill.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">WASHINGTON,
Nov. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new national survey finds most
voters blame drug companies not only for high drug prices, but also for
out-of-pocket costs. The findings undermine the drug industry's $100 million PR
campaign to blame higher costs on employers, unions, health plans and the
pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) they use to negotiate discounts on
prescription drugs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">"Consumers
are well aware drug companies set drug prices and they know higher prices mean
higher out-of-pocket costs. No one's buying the drug companies' campaign to
shift blame to employers, unions, plans, or the PBMs that negotiate discounts
on their behalf," said Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA)
President and CEO Mark Merritt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">North Star
Opinion Research surveyed 1,000 registered voters nationwide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Key findings
from survey include:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">By almost
3-to-1, voters blame high drug prices for increased cost-sharing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Only 1-in-5
voters buy the drugmakers' "rebates cause high prices" message.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">Three-quarters
of voters say the cost of prescription drugs is too high.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">More than
4-of-5 voters with prescription drug coverage are satisfied with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt;">PCMA is the
national association representing America's pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).
PBMs administer prescription drug plans for more than 266 million Americans who
have health insurance from a variety of sponsors including: commercial health
plans, self-insured employer plans, union plans, Medicare Part D plans, the
Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), state government employee
plans, managed Medicaid plans, and others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">SOURCE Pharmaceutical Care Management Association</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-26852158987367440992016-10-17T07:41:00.000-05:002016-10-17T07:41:30.574-05:00Senator Grassley: Competition is key to controlling drug costs, including a role for personal importation of prescription meds<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By Senator Chuck Grassley</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3rsyHRXHmNr0iyXNhu4haP02Z0-SeNgkfoEOF7Ev0QQhD6ukexIEavuLyCWnFiqRm8BnBZ37D5U3TqaVKPOB1KDxdtAZVuM4pLyQCDEIH0rkq7FEHWco-ZtAAJwS3_WIkBzEyRhYZRuMg/s1600/US+Congress+drawing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Congress must act to use personal importation to lower drug prices" border="0" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3rsyHRXHmNr0iyXNhu4haP02Z0-SeNgkfoEOF7Ev0QQhD6ukexIEavuLyCWnFiqRm8BnBZ37D5U3TqaVKPOB1KDxdtAZVuM4pLyQCDEIH0rkq7FEHWco-ZtAAJwS3_WIkBzEyRhYZRuMg/s400/US+Congress+drawing.JPG" title="Clip art house of reps" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Back to school shopping this year brought sticker shock for
families in Iowa and elsewhere. This wasn’t over pencils and notebooks but a
life-saving device that kids with severe allergies have to have available at
all times. The EpiPen cost has jumped more than 400 percent since 2007. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Paying
as much as $600 per product is a lot of money, especially considering families
like one in Polk City, Iowa, with four kids who need EpiPens. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The shelf life is
about a year, so the EpiPen needs to be replaced, and parents try to stock the
item in multiple places, like grandma’s house, in case of emergency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The price increases brought scrutiny on the company, Mylan,
that sells EpiPens. Iowans asked me to find out what was going on, and I
started asking questions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Soon afterward, Mylan announced steps to help
patients afford the product: more patient discount coupons and an authorized
generic version. Still, the company won’t lower the price, and daily headlines
tell us the EpiPen is only one of many prescription medicines busting budgets.
So what can and should be done to hold down drug costs?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">One of the best ways is to increase competition, where drug
companies are encouraged to innovate and produce new products and the
marketplace works to drive down prices. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Driving down prices also requires
making sure drug companies are playing fair and not gaming the rules. The
Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission enforce the antitrust
laws and investigate anti-competitive behavior. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Companies aren’t allowed to
engage in unfair or deceptive practices that end up harming consumers. The
agencies need to be assertive in enforcing these laws.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m a co-sponsor of two bipartisan bills that would help
address drug company practices that have delayed the availability of generic
drugs and kept drug costs high for patients. One is the Creating and Restoring
Equal Access to Equivalent Samples (CREATES) Act. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This bill would deter brand
name pharmaceutical companies from blocking less expensive generic alternatives
from entering the market. The brand companies do this by denying access to the
drug samples that generic makers need to develop their generic versions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
second bill is the Preserve Access to Affordable Generics Act. It would help
end the practice of brand name and generic manufacturers’ using anti-competitive
pay-off agreements to keep more affordable generic equivalents off the market.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Another way to lower costs is making sure drug companies
aren’t gaming taxpayer-funded public health care programs. Medicare and
Medicaid are big customers for prescription drugs and medical devices. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When
they overpay, the taxpayers overpay, and so do the beneficiaries who face out
of pocket copayments. My office found that Mylan relies heavily on Medicare and
Medicaid for its EpiPen revenue. Meanwhile, the federal agency that runs those
health care programs says Mylan has been overcharging Medicaid for EpiPens. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This might have cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Where was
the federal agency while this was going on? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The taxpayers are getting short
shrift, and the Obama Administration has not done its job here. I’m continuing
to ask questions. The Justice Department, and other agencies, now seem to be
paying attention.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Yet another way to drive down drug costs is the reimportation
of prescription drugs from other countries where product safety and
effectiveness can be assured. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Food and Drug Administration already has the
power to certify the safety of such drugs. The agency hasn’t wanted to use this
power for reasons that are unclear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The FDA also needs to continue to make progress on its backlog
of generic drug applications. When a company has submitted an application for a
generic product, consumers deserve a timely answer on whether that product is
ready for the marketplace. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And while the FDA’s no. 1 job is protecting public
safety, the agency also needs to make sure not to impose unneeded regulations
that prevent patients from getting new alterative or generic drugs as soon as
possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There may be other steps that would ease the sticker shock of
sky-high prescription drug prices. In the meantime, I’m working on legislation
and oversight efforts that will make a big difference for consumers and the
people of Iowa.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1449340136043700126.post-15245529834762633902016-10-05T10:45:00.000-05:002016-10-05T10:45:27.333-05:00ADVOCACY GROUPS LAUNCH JOINT EFFORT TO ENSURE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES ADDRESS LOWER DRUG COSTS AT NEXT DEBATE<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihcOQiMPZiBK5r_D-4RsPV97sxSc6mtuVkvxg72jnNpnN_88mNLQHowaCKvpiaUWA70zmUvBqXP4kdnf3swV32M7kqwmhyWpjHROOx2IcnUdWyxJszpMh2hl9cJ_MdF6T6W-jjU1V9pz6Q/s1600/open+debate+forum+logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihcOQiMPZiBK5r_D-4RsPV97sxSc6mtuVkvxg72jnNpnN_88mNLQHowaCKvpiaUWA70zmUvBqXP4kdnf3swV32M7kqwmhyWpjHROOx2IcnUdWyxJszpMh2hl9cJ_MdF6T6W-jjU1V9pz6Q/s400/open+debate+forum+logo.png" width="400" /></a><i>Effort will give voice to millions of Americans who support
access to personal importation of safe, affordable prescriptions</i></div>
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WASHINGTON, D.C., USA, October 5, 2016 /<a href="http://www.einpresswire.com/" target="_blank">EINPresswire.com</a>/-- <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A group of patient advocates and businesses
representing the right of Americans to engage in the importation of
prescription medications from safe, credentialed international pharmacies,
today announced joint support of an unprecedented initiative to ensure
presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump address the issue of
prescription importation at the second presidential debate.</span><br />
The group includes Daniel Hines, the publisher of <a href="http://todaysseniorsnetwork.com/" target="_blank">TodaysSeniorsNetwork</a>;
RxRights.org; the Campaign for Personal Prescription Importation,
PharmacyChecker.com, and the Prescription Justice Action Group. Together, these
organizations represent more than four million Americans who import medication
for personal use each year.<br />
<br />
A 500 percent increase in the price of the EpiPen® has elevated the issue of
high drug prices to the public’s attention and resulted in Congressional
hearings on high drug costs in the U.S. The discussion surrounding unaffordable
drug prices, however, has focused almost exclusively on long term
solutions.<br />
<br />
Americans cannot wait for long term solutions. The Commonwealth Fund reports at
least 35 million Americans failed to adhere to their prescribed drug regimens
in 2014 due to the high cost of their medications. This non-adherence is estimated
to cost $100-$300 billion in avoidable healthcare costs in the U.S. annually,
according to a study in Risk Management and Healthcare Policy (2014).
Meanwhile, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 71 percent of Americans
support access to safe, affordable medications through prescription importation
(September, 2016).<br />
<br />
The group is asking Americans to support the issue by voting for its
importation question through the Open Debate Coalition forum, at https:/<a href="http://presidentialopenquestions.com/questions/12064/vote" target="_blank">/presidentialopenquestions.com/questions/12064/vote/</a>.
It is also encouraging supporters to share their stories on social media and
let the moderators of the October 9 presidential debate, Anderson Cooper and
Martha Raddatz, know that Americans want the presidential candidates to explain
how they will provide immediate relief on drug prices and how they’ll fight to
increase access to safe, affordable medications through prescription
importation. Supporters should use the hashtags #RxAccess and #RxImportation to
participate in the discussion.<br />
<br />
About TodaysSeniorsNetwork<br />
TodaysSeniorsNetwork , which includes <a href="http://rxforamericanhealth.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">RxforAmericanHealth</a> and
the <a href="http://americanrxbillofrights.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">AmericanRxBillofRights</a>, is America's leading information source for seniors
an issues facing an aging America. Publisher Daniel Hines, an international
award-winning communicator brings his unique perspective to a host of issues
based on his extensive work with policy-makers at the local, state and Federal
levels, elected officials, seniors' and other advocacy groups, and who has
worked extensively on behalf of personal importation of safe, affordable
prescription medicines for 15 years. For the official blog, visit<a href="http://www.todaysseniorsnetwork.com/" target="_blank">http://www.todaysseniorsnetwork.com</a> and
for more information, contact Daniel Hines at 636.399.2849 or <a href="https://www.blogger.com/todaysseniorsnet@sbcglobal.net.%C2%A0">todaysseniorsnet@sbcglobal.net. </a><br />
<br />
About RxRights<br />
RxRights is a national nonprofit coalition of individuals and organizations
dedicated to raising awareness and spurring action around issues related to
U.S. prescription drug pricing. We support the right of Americans to import
medicine from legitimate, licensed online and mail order international
pharmacies. RxRights.org serves as a forum for individuals to share experiences
and voice opinions regarding Americans’ need for affordable prescription drugs.
We encourage participation and discussion through our website. For more
information visit <a href="http://www.rxrights.org/" target="_blank">www.rxrights.org</a> or
contact Lee Graczyk: <a href="mailto:lee@rxrights.org">lee@rxrights.org</a> or
1-866-703-5442.<br />
<br />
About Campaign for Personal Prescription Importation<br />
Campaign for Personal Prescription Importation (CPPI) is a national nonprofit
patient advocacy organization that advocates for Americans’ access to safe,
affordable prescription medications from Canada for personal use. Tens of
millions of Americans – especially the elderly and others on fixed incomes –
struggle to pay the extremely high price of prescription medications in the
U.S. We are here to be a voice for them. For more information visit <a href="http://www.personalimportation.org/" target="_blank">www.personalimportation.org</a> or
contact Rebecca Kelley at <a href="https://www.blogger.com/info@personalimportation.org%20">info@personalimportation.org</a>
or 202.765.3290.<br />
<br />
About PharmacyChecker.com<br />
PharmacyChecker.com (<a href="http://www.pharmacychecker.com/" target="_blank">www.pharmacychecker.com</a>)
is the only independent company that verifies U.S. and international online
pharmacies and compares prescription drug prices. Our verifications and price
comparisons have been referenced by AARP Magazine, the New York Times, the Wall
Street Journal, and many others. We were formed in 2002 when our founder, Tod
Cooperman, M.D., saw that increasing numbers of Americans were looking on the
Internet to save money on medication but did not have adequate information to
protect their health. We are a stakeholder in the online consumer-driven
healthcare community, seeking an open Internet environment that promotes
innovation and new business models, especially those that serve the public
health. For more information, contact Gabriel Levitt at 718.387.4526 or <a href="https://www.blogger.com/Gabriel.levitt@pharmacychecker.com.%C2%A0">Gabriel.levitt@pharmacychecker.com. </a></div>
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About Prescription Justice Action Group<br /><a href="http://www.pjag.org/" target="_blank">Prescription Justice Action Group</a> is a not-for-profit organization that is
dedicated to providing relief and protection for American patients.
Prescription Justice Action Group brings together doctors, lawyers, public
health advocates, and companies dedicated to helping people afford medication.
For more information, contact Jodi Dart at 217.306.5823 or <a href="https://www.blogger.com/jodi@pjag.org.">jodi@pjag.org.</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Daniel Hines<br />
TodaysSeniorsNetwork<br />
636-399-2849<br />
<a href="http://www.einpresswire.com/contact_author/347967403">email us here</a><o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14189094284251598454noreply@blogger.com0