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Published On: Sat, Mar 16th, 2019

Prescription drug prices falling to 47 year low as generics rise, Amy Klobuchar wrong on talking points

The cost of prescription drugs are falling for the first time in 47 years.

photo/ Andrea

The government on Tuesday said prescription prices sank 1% in February, marking the biggest one-month decline ever. The cost of prescription drugs over the past year have dropped by 1.2%. That’s the biggest 12-month decline since 1972.

Check out the graph below from the Bureau of Labor.

Congress has already held a half-dozen hearings this year and interviewed drug industry executives in public. The pressure is on for fair pricing.

Government regulators are seeking to do their part by speeding up the approval of generic drugs to increase competition. A slew of new one ones are hitting the market in 2019.

That “would explain the moderation in drug prices,” said economist Pooja Sriram of Barclays.

Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Economics points out that drug prices are difficult to measure and “erratic” from month to month. Studies show that the cash price of a drug can vary by hundreds or even thousands of dollars across the country depending on when and where they are purchased.

Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities, said the decline in drug and medical prices in February are “extremely unlikely to be repeated on a regular basis.”

Meanwhile, 2020 hopeful and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is claiming that Obamacare didn’t do enough to bring in “Big Pharma” to drive down drug prices. Even though she was IN CONGRESS and VOTED for the Affordable Care Act, she speak in the third person on the issue.

“I would have liked to see this be part of the Affordable Care Act. But it wasn’t, in part, because they were working with the pharmaceutical companies on the premiums issue. They were working with them on getting support for the Affordable Care Act because they knew that pharma could stop that bill in its tracks,” she said in an interview with CNN’s Poppy Harlow that aired Friday morning.

She attacks Republicans and says the she and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, would be working closely to bring up legislation to lower drug costs.

When asked what the American people can expect from a partnership with Grassley, Klobuchar said to expect “legislation to take on pharma and say: ‘You don’t own Washington.'”

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- Writer and Co-Founder of The Global Dispatch, Brandon has been covering news, offering commentary for years, beginning professionally in 2003 on Crazed Fanboy before expanding into other blogs and sites. Appearing on several radio shows, Brandon has hosted Dispatch Radio, written his first novel (The Rise of the Templar) and completed the three years Global University program in Ministerial Studies to be a pastor. To Contact Brandon email [email protected] ATTN: BRANDON

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