California ballot measures take on discount drugs for the poor
From the New York Times:
Pharmaceutical companies are pouring tens of millions of dollars into a campaign to defeat a measure on the November ballot in California that would pressure them to lower drug prices for millions of people.
The proposal, backed by some consumer groups and labor unions, would allow California, the nation’s most populous state, to punish companies that did not offer sufficiently discounted drugs to people with low and moderate incomes by discouraging the use of those companies’ drugs in the state’s Medicaid program.
The industry has its own proposal on the ballot – a discount program administered by the state that would be voluntary for the companies.
The cost of the most widely used prescription drugs rose more than five times the rate of inflation from 2003-2004. And increases in the cost of the Medicare Part D premium are tied to increases in the cost of drugs, not to the cost of living index. Go figure.