“This probably deserves a more detailed rebuttal, but as an overall response I would say the ‘anonymous’ critic is completely off base.

The drugs analyzed were very carefully selected to be the ones both heavily prescribed. The inclusion of those with generic substitutes just makes the point about how marketing still seems to dominate competition on price. Patients on those two branded drugs experienced cost increases, not decreases, because we used most commonly prescribed as our selection basis. Of course, we promote generic substitution. The industry hasn’t offered a persuasive explanation of why branded drugs whose patents expire have their prices increased.

AARP does not consider financial impact on the United Healthcare Part D plan in any of our policy work or analysis. Anyone who knows us understands that there is a firewall between our policy operations and anything that produces revenue. We believe prices should be ‘forced’ lower, not to increase United’s profit, but to make drugs and the Part D premiums more affordable.

The ‘anonymous’ critic seems to take the position that simply documenting price increases is somehow a self-interested activity. On the contrary, we believe that prices of pharmaceuticals in the U.S. are too high by any standard, certainly in comparison to prices elsewhere, and that these price trends are unsustainable if continued. Putting pressure on the industry to explain its pricing behavior is, we believe, in the public interest. We await a more constructive and substantive response.”

Again, this was sent to my own e-mail by John Rother, the AARP policy director. And I posted his remarks with his knowledge.

Thoughts anyone?

Regards
ed

I have reached out to AARP’s John Rother, and a press person there, several times by e-mail and phone today and, unfortunately, I’ve not yet received a reply. I also invited him to post a comment. It’s still possible he will respond. I’ve dealt with Rother numerous times over the years and, like you, I am curious to see what, if anything comes back in the face of the comments several of you have made.

Regards
ed

It is also important to remember that rebate contracts with Managed care organizations and wholesalers’ ability to anticipate price increases means that the manufacturer cannot realize the price increase until contracts expire or wholesalers deplete their stocks.

On a 3% increase, I would guess that perhaps 1.6% is actually booked in the near-term.

Plus, the average increase on all the drugs is nearly a useless number. The increase should be weighted by sales. A price increase on a drug with total sales of $50 million shouldn’t count as much as an increase on a drug that sells for $1 billion. The chart lists the 25 most frequent drugs. Did the study weigh their data by sales?

well, the other way of looking at that is that the US funds global R&D and subsidises other markets because they arent willing to invest sufficiently in healthcare.

These AARP reports need to be placed in perspective - they measure list prices and not the ‘real’ price paid, which factors in discounts. Companies need to keep list prices high because the US remains a popular reference country in other markets like Canada, japan and South Korea. It’s the real price that counts and AARP tells us nothing about that

AARP’s Public Policy Institute finds that price increases for brand name drugs have far outstripped the price increases for other consumer goods and services between 2002 and 2007; this is consistent with the pattern that we have seen since initiating…