Profits of Top Grossing Pharmaceutical Companies

deespoohbear · Mar 12, 2003

Holy Mackerel!!

Anyone else think the American public is getting the screws put to them when it comes to prescription meds? (Duh!!) :rolleyes:

pickledpepperRN · Mar 12, 2003

Very long but interesting analysis.

http://www.calnurse.org/cna/pharmahear31103.pdf

RN2B2005 · Mar 12, 2003

Good for them. People get all up in arms about pharmaceutical companies, but forget that access to medication is a privilege, not a right. We are privileged to live in a time and place that allows these medications to exist at all.

R&D takes money. Marketing takes money. Physician education takes money. We live in a wildly litigious society. And pharmaceutical companies are businesses...in business to make money by selling a product. I don't see why we should fault them for doing their job. The price of my medication funds dozens of intangibles--vaccine production, for instance, which is invariably a money-losing task.

The best method of controlling costs is using a formulary--which most state funded (welfare) plans don't use, because God forbid that the alcoholic with Type II diabetes have to take a generic drug, lest the state appear to be discriminating against the poor. Guess what? Most insurance companies routinely use a formulary to keep drug costs down...and most people don't even know they exist.

It's easy to be self-righteous and complain about the 'evil' drug companies, but every time I take a puff on my albuterol inhaler I count my blessings that these 'evils' exist.

pickledpepperRN · Mar 12, 2003

This is NOT the drug companies fault, but nurses and patients should be aware.

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2003/NEW00877.html

By the way. We had a nursing assistant who was terminated because she had cancer. She could not afford the COBRA plan as it was about 1/4 her disability check and she had two kids.

She died in my unit at the facility where she worked for 24 years.

Sorry I think she WAS deserving of affordable medication as much as the drug company multi millionaires!

PS: I use generics. Patients have to take what their doctor prescribes and often are too sick to think of asking for a lower cost med. MDs too do not think of it.

Do you think the senior whose retirement was all in the stock market should be able to afford the meds they may need?

The joke goes, "Take with food! How? If I buy food I can't buy the medicine."

Glad you have the "privilege" of continuing to breathe.

pickledpepperRN · Mar 13, 2003

Originally posted by RN2B2005
Good for them. People get all up in arms about pharmaceutical companies, but forget that access to medication is a privilege, not a right. We are privileged to live in a time and place that allows these medications to exist at all.

It's easy to be self-righteous and complain about the 'evil' drug companies, but every time I take a puff on my albuterol inhaler I count my blessings that these 'evils' exist.

What about kids?