- A study commissioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders shows that the U.S. pays 2 to 4 times more for prescription drugs than other wealthy countries.
- One example that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) cites is Xarelto, a blood clot medication that costs more than $558 for 30 tablets in the U.S. but just over $85 in Canada.
- “We can no longer tolerate the American people paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs,” said Sanders.
Jake Johnson from Rawstory writes:
“A new government study commissioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders shows that the U.S. pays two to four times more for prescription drugs than other rich countries, a finding that came as President Joe Biden rolled out a social safety-net plan on Wednesday that excludes progressive proposals to tackle sky-high medicine costs.
According to an analysis (pdf) by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), retail prices that U.S. consumers and insurers paid for 20 brand-name prescription drugs in 2020 were 2.82 times higher than in Canada, 4.25 times higher than in Australia, and 4.36 times higher than in France.
“We can no longer tolerate the American people paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.”
—Sen. Bernie Sanders
The drugs GAO examined were a sampling of 41 brand-name medicines with the highest expenditures and use in the Medicare Part D program, which under current federal law is prohibited from negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies.
One example GAO cites is Xarelto, a blood clot medication that costs more than $558 for 30 tablets in the U.S. but just over $85 in Canada…”
See full story here.
Categories: Business
Economic Left 
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