Dear Pharmaceutical Companies...

Dear Pharmaceutical Companies,

This is why we hate you.  I read today in the Chicago Tribune that a drug used to help prevent premature birth is changing it's price from $15 a dose to $1,500 a dose.  Why? you might ask.  The answer is simply because the FDA has officially "approved" it.  Stupid no?  Yes, I think so.  This is a drug that has been used since the 50s to help thousands of women prevent premature births and now, simply because KV pharmaceuticals has received the FDA's "OK" to own the patent for 7 years, they also have the "OK" to charge whatever they can obtain for the drug.  Totally not okay because it comes back to bite us taxpayers in the rear.  We help pay for drug companies to do research because we buy their products and pay taxes that help pay for their funding.  Well, these same drug companies say that customers will receive a "break" on their drug purchase, but do you know how this actually works?  Customers receive a "break" because insurance premiums go up to help cover the cost of drug and Medicare and other health plans.  That means that we pay more to be coverage we need because some people under the umbrella of Cigna or Blue Cross Blue Shield or whatever other company you have has to pay $30,000 for this drug whereas before it only cost them $300.  D-U-M-B.

What I don't understand - if the drug was working, why aren't people making a bigger stink and actually listening.  Apparentely doctors and patients alike have written this KV company pleading they lower the astronomically high price because 14,000 people are already taking the drug and can't afford for the price of the drug and their premiums to rise.  Yay for lobbying moving in the wrong direction because all the blame is going to get put back on the insurance companies for raising premiums, when it's truly not the insurance companies' fault that these drug companies can run prices as high as they want.  This "drug patent" program is just giving legalized monopolies.  Totally not okay.  It would be nice to see something proactive done about this climbing issue.