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Drug Companies Put the Squeeze on Older Americans

Seniors' Most Popular Drugs Increase in Cost
Four Times the Rate of Inflation

AUSTIN, TEXAS - The price of a popular drug used to fight Parkinson's disease rose 385 percent over the past five years and another one to combat angina went up 111 percent. The two drugs were among 50 used extensively by older Americans whose prices far outpaced the rate of inflation during this period, according to a report released today by the consumer watchdog group Families USA and Consumers Union.

From January 1998 to January 1999, the prices of the 50 most prescribed drugs for older Americans increased 6.6 percent, four times the rate of inflation (1.6 percent), the report said. Over the past five years, the prices of these popular drugs rose twice as fast as the rate of inflation.

Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical industry continues to net record profits and outpatient prescription drugs are still excluded from Medicare coverage.

"There is something seriously wrong with this picture," said Lisa McGiffert, a senior policy analyst with the Southwest Regional Office of Consumers Union. "Seniors whose lives depend on prescription drugs are at the mercy of huge drug corporations, which are making money hand over fist at their expense."

While older Americans fill over 18 prescriptions per year, and nearly half of all Medicare beneficiaries live on less than $15,000 per year, the elderly are the last major insured consumer group without access to prescription drugs as a standard benefit.

"It is unconscionable that the sickest and oldest Americans go without prescription drug coverage as part of their basic benefit package," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA. "Each year their social security checks increase only at the rate of inflation, while the costs of the drugs they take rise at two, three or four times the rate of inflation."