Obamacare causing medicine price hikes

To children subject to allergic reaction such as bee stings and peanuts, having an EpiPen available can be a matter of life and death.

The cost of a pack of two EpiPens now $608.61, represents an increase of 548 percent since Mylan began selling the drug in late 2007. What is really causing these hikes? Is big pharma just pushing price points as far as they can, or are there other contributing factors?

Pharmaceutical companies claim it is the cost of researching and developing medication that drives the prices at the drugstore. The United States contributes roughly half of all research spending across the globe. But it is worth noting which countries are absent from increased research spending. Canada and the bulk of the EU have seen almost no growth in spending for roughly 15 years, for single-payer and universal health care systems lead to stagnation because there is no competition.

What happened in the U.S.? Obamacare restructured the insurance system and had major impacts on how health care companies get paid. Investments could be cut as more conditions and treatments were given mandatory coverage, providing pharmaceutical companies and other providers an opportunity to guarantee their profits.

After all, a lifesaving drug like EpiPen would almost certainly be covered. Besides cutting investments, there was a major shift in how money was spent. More than half of all investment is now in research directed at human testing and marketing instead of advancing medicine.

Obamacare must be scrapped for a health care system that is based on the free market system. With competition, the choice factor will lower the cost of drugs and will also allow pharmaceutical companies to invest in research that will save lives instead of maintaining the bottom line.

Nancy J. Thorner

Lake Bluff