“Stayin’ Alive”
Pharmaceuticals are keeping me alive.
Each and every day, I take six (count ’em six) pills to control cholesterol (now 170, once measured at 260), lessen blood pressure (now 110/70, once 240/160), keep my remaining kidney functioning, allow pain-free urination, and thin my blood. I am not alone. More than 60 percent of the 65 million people on Medicare take prescription medication, and 25 percent take at least four prescriptions. It is reassuring that my six prescriptions make me “above average” just like the children of Lake Wobegone where “the men are beautiful, the women are strong, and all the children are above average”.
Yesterday, the Biden Crime Family (as it is referred to on Fox) or the Biden Administration (as on CNN) released the ten prescription drugs subject to price negotiation by Medicare as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. How can drug prices influence overall inflation? MAGA Republicans nearly shut down the government earlier this year claiming that Biden is spending our tax dollars like a drunken sailor. “The National Debt is increasing by trillions!”
Medicare coughed up more than $100 billion for just those ten drugs just last year. Negotiate that down to $50 billion and Drunken Sailor Joe just reduced inflation.
Of course, Big Pharma immediately sued Medicare. Negotiated prescription drug prices were not scheduled to go into effect until 2026 anyway, but Big Pharma can delay even that with lawsuits. “Hold on to that Pfizer stock, folks. We can kick this can down the road for a long, long while.”
Why has it taken this long for Medicare to negotiate drug prices? Blame the G.W. Bush Administration. The same fine folks who justified a war in Iraq with imaginary Weapons of Mass Destruction added take-at-home drug benefits to Medicare in 2003. To win Republican support, that statute included language prohibiting the government from negotiating medication prices. I wonder how many millions in “campaign contributions” flowed to the GOP from Big Pharma to make that happen.
A major advantage to being a dependent of a retired New Jersey educator is that my prescription drug costs are minimized. Five of my six drugs run about $5 out-of-pocket every three months. The Magic Five are all generics and are not on Medicare’s Negotiation List. Prescription #6, blood thinner Xarelto, costs me $51 quarterly. It is on The List. Maybe I’ll save some of that $51 come 2026, but I doubt it.
I cannot complain though. Medicare spent $6 billion last year for Xarelto and it still cost users not on the New Jersey dole more than $100 per month. Alternatively, you can save that $100, send a blot clot to your brain and suffer a stroke.
I choose “Stayin’ Alive”.
By Ed Dufton
