Save more by busting Big Pharma crooks
By Philip Mattera, director of the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First for the Dirt Diggers Digest
On one side we have Trump’s approach, which is to create a web platform—named after himself, of course—that claims it will provide access to the lowest prices.
TrumpRx, which at this point contains only a large
photograph of its namesake in the Oval Office along with grandiose promises, is
designed to inform consumers about special deals that will be available through
purchases directly from drug manufacturers.Like many of Trump’s initiatives, TrumpRx is characterized by misleading claims, conflicts of interest, and potential illegality.
In many
cases, the promised savings are illusory. The prices consumers pay when buying
directly from the drug companies will be higher than what they would pay using
insurance. Those without insurance may benefit, but the amount of the benefit
is declining as the companies which signed up for TrumpRx have been raising their
prices.
Concerns about a conflict of interest stem from the fact
that the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., sits on the board of BlinkRx, a
company which is positioning itself to profit from TrumpRx by helping drug
companies set up direct-to-consumer systems linked to the program.
And concerns
about illegality are linked to the possibility that TrumpRx may run
afoul of the Anti-Kickback Statute by steering patients to higher-cost
medications that they may end up receiving through Medicare and Medicaid.
Compare this mess to the recent announcement that attorneys general from 48 states and territories had reached a settlement with Bausch Health and Lannett Company to resolve allegations they conspired “to artificially inflate and manipulate prices, reduce competition, and unreasonably restrain trade with regard to numerous generic prescription drugs.” The firms agreed to pay nearly $18 million and consented to a set of reforms designed to promote fair competition.
At the same time, 42 states and territories filed a new
lawsuit against drug giant Novartis and its subsidiary Sandoz, accusing them of
fixing prices, allocating markets, and rigging bids for 31 different generic
drugs.
These are just the latest developments in a long-running
legal battle against anti-competitive practices in the generic drug industry,
which was once seen as a force that would drive down prices. Instead, many
generic producers allowed themselves to be corrupted by entering into deals
with brand-name manufacturers under which they were paid to delay introduction
of low-cost substitutes. Pay for delay legal actions brought by federal
agencies, state AGs, and private plaintiffs in class action lawsuits have yielded
billions of dollars in settlements.
These cases have not yet made drug manufacturers paragons of
competitive virtue, but they put continuing pressures on companies to end their
abuses. That’s a lot more than what we can expect from TrumpRx and its dubious
agreements with Big Pharma.
