This is the Tom Hartman Program.

Our book today on the Tom Hartman Book Club is Robin Feldman's book, Drugs, Money, and

Secret Handshakes.

The Unstoppable Growth of Prescription Drug Prices from Oxford University Press. This is from the

introduction. Everyone has a limit. Every budget has an end point. All those sellers

would love to raise prices continually. It doesn't take fancy economics to know

that at some point the

money runs out. Why isn't that basic principle working as expected in the

pharmaceutical industry? Instead drug prices are rising continually and

reaching astronomical levels with no end in sight.

In May 2018, analysts reported that a company is contemplating a $1.5 million price tag for

new hemophilia cure. The current

hemophilia therapies already cost an astounding 580,000 to 800,000 dollars a year.

Along the same lines, Spark Therapeutics Cure for a rare form of

blindness will cost $850,000. Rively Novartis is planned $475,000 price tag

for its car T drug Camira.

Even outside the eye-popping headlines, prescription drug prices across the board have risen

to an alarming and puzzling level.

A government inspector general's report found that the high cost of

brand medications for common conditions like diabetes, high cholesterol, and asthma

were the true problem for patients on Medicare. In fact, pharmaceutical companies have raised the prices most sharply

for commonly used medications such as these. Similarly an analyst report

...