One Reason For Caps

Every other country does this -- puts a cap on how much pharmaceuticals can charge for their drugs. It keeps costs down, and there aren't emerging controversy's like we are currently seeing with the red blood cell boosters aranasp, epogen, and procrit.

The NY Times editors have thrown out a bandaid,

The explosion in the use of three anti-anemia drugs to treat cancer and kidney patients illustrates much that is wrong in the American pharmaceutical marketplace. Thanks to big payoffs to doctors, and reckless promotional ads permitted by lax regulators, the drugs have reached blockbuster status. Now we learn that the dosage levels routinely injected or given intravenously in doctors’ offices and dialysis centers may be harmful to patients.

As Alex Berenson and Andrew Pollack laid bare in The Times on May 9, wide use of the medicines — Aranesp and Epogen, from Amgen; and Procrit, from Johnson & Johnson — has been propelled by the two companies paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in so-called rebates. Doctors typically buy the drugs from the companies, get reimbursed for much of the cost by Medicare and private insurers, and on top of that get these rebates based on the amount they have purchased.


I do agree with is getting rid of the Direct to Consumer marketing. A pill for everything and everything has a pill.

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