Posted on 05/02/2019 7:25:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This country's healthcare system is a mess. Not a mess like the British NHS, but a mess, nonetheless. The price of prescription drugs is one aspect that has gotten out of control. Many Americans forgo needed medicine because they can't afford it, and the projected 3.8% increase in drug prices expected during 2020 isn't going to make matters any better. Unsurprisingly, government regulations have helped unlock human greed. For example, over a six-year period (2011-2016) according to CNN, Medicare spent $2 billion on the drug Acthar, a medication used to treat seizures in infants. CNN is now reporting that the same pharmaceutical company guilty of hiking Acthar's prices upwards of 97,000% has also been bribing doctors to buy the drug.
CNN reveals:
Two whistleblowers at a pharmaceutical company responsible for one of the largest drug prices increase in US history said the company bribed doctors and their staffs to increase sales, according to newly unveiled documents in federal court.
The effort, the whistleblowers said in a lawsuit against the company, was part of an intentional 'multi-tiered' strategy by Questcor Pharmaceuticals, now Mallinckrodt, to boost sales of H.P. Acthar Gel, cheating the government out of millions of dollars.
Questcor's allegedly underhanded efforts helped push sales of the drug to over $1 billion a year. Those efforts have also earned the company the attention of the Justice Department. The lawsuit claims that not only did the company bribe doctors but also lied to the Food and Drug Administration. The suit reads:
Questcor has attempted to conceal and cover-up its payment of kick-backs and its illegal promotion of H.P. Acthar Gel by making false statements to the FDA and directing employees to conceal evidence by failing to disclose … the full nature and extent of its advertising, promotional and marketing materials and plan.
The pharmaceutical company has vehemently denied the allegations, but NYU law professor Jennifer Arlen told CNN, "The government has tended to take over cases that become winners. Historically [for the company], the government's decision to take over is a bad sign."
No matter how this matter is resolved, one thing is clear: government intervention in the marketplace encourages greedy humans to exploit the system. When guaranteed federal dollars are at play, the free market becomes less and less free, prices rise, corporate fat cats benefit, and consumers are harmed.
Want to gawk at hot chicks, go to a specialists office and wait about an hour, they line up like the Bunny Ranch.
“This country’s healthcare system is a mess.”
Liberal leftist Alert right there.
Just like they bribed Rick Perry to make Gardisil a required vaccination.
You are not wrong. A VERY attractive former colleague of mine left the business to go into pharma sales. I am sure that was a key part of her qualifications.
You don’t say!
The whole system is a bot of the Pharma industry. From the Med schools (pharma over actual science) to the bribed docs to the studies.
It isn’t health care. It’s “Solving Problems with Patentable Drugs Only.”
The worst Crony Capitalism.
Add the limited liability of vaccines.
Add mandatory medicine.
It is corrupt.
I always heard Pharma companies are big employers of former college cheerleaders.
I was in a waiting room for a GI specialist. Who comes walking with her rolling briefcase, a very attractive brunette who goes to the receptionist window.
What happens if the practice is run by women? Does the Pharma companies send in Fabio wanna bes?
Yes!
I had a lymph node problem so I had a few appointments, it was basically the line up for cheer leader tryouts every time.
I just got out of the hospital and got a 6,000 dollar pharmacy bill. I was in for a week. I got the same drugs for 60 dollars in the two weeks I have been out.
Should start handing out the death penalty for this sort of thing. How many people died because the medicine was unlawfully put out of their economic reach?
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