Bush or Kerry, generics drugs are a win/win-IMO.
The Kerry Plan
Cut The Cost of Prescription Drugs
Prescription drug costs are rising at 20 percent a year and are the main driver of health care costs. John Kerry will stand up to the big drug companies and bring down the cost of prescription drugs.
Ending loopholes that keep high quality generics off the market. Patent loopholes are keeping less expensive generic drugs off the market. For example, the patent for one expensive painkiller was extended for three years just because the drug company made minor changes in dosage, costing consumers $727 million. John Kerry will close these loopholes.
Making pharmaceutical companies disclose rebates and incentives. Some estimates show that rebates and incentives to Pharmaceutical Benefit Managers may account for as much as 10 percent of the $161 billion that Americans spent on prescription drugs last year. John Kerry will make companies disclose where this money is going.
Reducing Prescription Drug Errors. Nearly $76 billion in annual health care costs are due to patients incorrectly taking medications. Kerry will improve health care and reduce costs with aggressive patient and provider education programs and with new technologies to help patients understand prescriptions.
Bush on generics
Bush Announces an Easing of Rules on New Generic Drugs
President Bush announced new rules today that make it easier to introduce lower-cost generic versions of prescription drugs, intensifying his efforts to address health care issues ahead of next year’s election.
The president, making good on a proposal he first made last year, said the Food and Drug Administration’s action would limit the ability of pharmaceutical companies to delay the introduction of generic versions of prescription medicines. He said the F.D.A. rule would curtail a practice among manufacturers of brand-name drugs of delaying the introduction of generic versions by filing multiple patent-infringement lawsuits against potential competitors.
Under current rules, each patent-infringement suit causes a 30-month delay by the F.D.A. in considering generic versions of a drug for approval. Mr. Bush said drug makers would now be limited to a single 30-month regulatory delay to sort out patent disputes.
Mr. Bush said he was also directing the agency not to block generics because of patent disputes over minor issues like the color of a pill bottle or the use of ingredients not related to the drug’s effectiveness. And he said his action would tighten the overall rules on patent applications, making it a criminal offense to make false statements to get a patent.
“By taking these actions, we will bring generic drugs to the market much more quickly ? in some cases, years earlier,” Mr. Bush said during an appearance at a hospital here. “And this should save the American consumers about $3.5 billion a year, savings that will go, of course, to the consumers, to our seniors, or to Medicare programs administered by the state or to employer health plans.”
The trade association for the big pharmaceutical companies signaled that they opposed the administration’s decision and would fight similar legislation pending in the Senate. |
