Brand-Name Drugs Costing Consumers More, U.S. Report Finds

Posted on January 12, 2010 in Consumer Goods, Health & Medicine, Recent Studies

The price of brand-name drugs, particularly those used to treat depression, heart disease, and infections, has skyrocketed in the last 10 years, a new government report says.

According to the report from the General Accountability Office, there have been “extraordinary price increases” for 321 brand-name drugs since 2000, including price jumps ranging between 100 percent and 499 percent and as high as 1,000 percent in some cases, according to a Reuters news report.

Overall, twice as many drugs saw price increases from 2000 to 2008 than in previous years, the report found.

The GAO report was requested by Democratic senators Charles Schumer and Amy Klobuchar, who have made making brand-name drugs more affordable for Americans a goal by allowing the government’s Medicare prescription drug program to negotiate prices with drug companies.

“This is further proof that Medicare should be allowed to negotiate drug prices, just as the Veterans Administration does. It would help save taxpayers a lot of money,” Klobuchar said, according to Reuters.

Reining in prescription drug costs is believed to be part of the larger healthcare reform bills making their way through Washington, D.C. However, some critics have said the plans now in the works are too kind to drug companies and don’t do enough to control the out-of-control cost increases of name-brand drugs.