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A Significant Investment in Significant Reform
At AstraZeneca, we agree with President Obama: The growth in long-term health spending is not sustainable for the nation or for patients, and all players in the health-care system must commit to addressing the issue of rising health costs.
That's why our industry's $80 billion agreement with the White House and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) demonstrates that pharmaceutical companies are willing to step up to the plate and do their share to help enact health-care reform this year. This is a significant commitment to support significant reform that meets our common goal: to provide affordable, high-quality health coverage to all Americans.
As part of the commitment announced over the weekend, pharmaceutical companies will help patients in the Medicare prescription savings program better afford their medicines by closing the gap in coverage that many experience under the current program.
Specifically, pharmaceutical companies have agreed to provide a 50 percent discount to most patients on brand-name medicines covered by a patient's Medicare prescription drug plan when purchased in the coverage gap. That will provide real savings for seniors and represents a major effort by pharmaceutical companies to address the problems the coverage gap creates for some patients.
This is an important first step toward comprehensive health reform, one that picked up momentum Monday when AARP - the largest advocacy group for American seniors - announced it supported the agreement between our companies, the White House and Sen. Baucus. We welcome AARP's support and look forward to joining other organizations to pursue our common goals.
Going forward, we are committed to working with Congress and the Obama administration to enact legislation that promotes market competition, ensures patient safety, expands coverage for the uninsured and fosters and rewards the development of new medicines while providing protection for intellectual property.
By
David Brennan
|
June 22, 2009; 8:28 PM ET
| Category:
Health Care Reform
,
Pharmaceutical Companies
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Posted by: lensch | June 23, 2009 3:11 PM
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This is a token effort to lull the public into giving up true reform. When Big Pharma offers to eliminate "marketing", that hundred billion a year it spends to get us to take drugs we do not need or to get physicians to prescribe new expensive drugs when older cheaper drugs are just as good if not better, then I will begin to believe them. When it stops all advertising like in the rest of the world (except New Zealand), when it stops sending tens of thousands of unqualified "pushers" to doctors offices, when it stops bribing physicians with fake educational programs, then I will begin to believe them.
If you want more information, here are two good articles:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200604/drug-reps (on pushers)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/magazine/25memoir-t.html (on fake educational programs)