Rising Price of Old Drugs Costs Medicaid Billions

[babylonsister]

Rising Price of Old Drugs Costs Medicaid Billions
Medicaid spent billions more in 2016 than the year before on decades-old prescription drugs, including many generics. Lack of competition is a big culprit.
Sydney Lupkin
08.11.17 1:00 AM ET

By Sydney Lupkin | Kaiser Health News


Skyrocketing price tags for new drugs to treat rare diseases have stoked outrage nationwide. But hundreds of old, commonly used drugs cost the Medicaid program billions of extra dollars in 2016 vs. 2015, a Kaiser Health News data analysis shows. Eighty of the drugs—some generic and some still carrying brand names—proved more than two decades old.

Rising costs for 313 brand-name drugs lifted Medicaid’s spending by as much as $3.2 billion in 2016, the analysis shows. Nine of these brand-name drugs have been on the market since before 1970. In addition, the data reveal that Medicaid’s outlays for 67 generics and other non-branded drugs cost taxpayers an extra $258 million last year.

Even after a medicine has gone generic, the branded version often remains on the market. Medicaid recipients might choose to purchase it because they’re brand loyalists or because state laws prevent pharmacists from automatically substituting generics. Drugs driving Medicaid spending increases ranged from common asthma medicines like Ventolin to over-the-counter painkillers, like the generic form of Aleve, to generic antidepressants and heartburn medicines.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/rising-price-of-old-drugs-costs-medicaid-billions

[democratisphere]

1. Price gouging Big Pharma is out of control and gone greedmongering insane.

[Vinca]

2. My husband takes plain, old insulin because he had a severe reaction to the newer drugs.

It was discovered in 1921. It has gone up at least 25% in the short period he's been taking it and it was expensive to begin with. He also takes a heart medication that was developed in 1964. In the past few years it's gone from a quarter a pill to $1.25 a pill. We always buy generic drugs when they're available. There's no reason at all for drugs that have been around for decades not to be at rock bottom pricing. Big pharma doesn't even bother advertising them. Somehow we have to separate greed from medical care.