“The AARP put out a remarkably complex research paper that shows, among other things, that the costs that people over 50 paid for commonly used drugs rose 25.6% between 2005 and 2009. The data used in the AARP Public Policy Institute research was based on the retail prices of the 469 most used prescription drugs among people over 50. To make matters worse, the price for the 441 most common drugs for treatment of chronic disease rose 46.7%. The findings beg the question of who is minding the drug price store.
The AARP, the primary lobbying group for older Americans, has a stake in the drug price battle. Its millions of members expect the association to help them live affordable lives. That is part of the reason these people pay dues to the AARP. That does not make the data any less compelling.
Much of the focus on bringing down health care costs has been on doctors, hospitals and affordable insurance. These sectors of the health care business involve hundreds of thousands of transactions a year, because of the large numbers of doctors and hospitals and the complex insurance pricing systems. Drug costs are another matter. It is not terribly hard for the federal government to monitor what consumers pay for several hundred drugs and to ask pharmaceuticalcompanies why those prices have risen so fast. In some cases, the reasons may be adequate. Among the reasons are the prices that companies pay for drug ingredients….”
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