The American system of not regulating drug prices is to blame for the recent 5,000 percent hike in the cost of a 62-year-old medication, author Steven Brill tells
Newsmax TV.
"It's the system that we alone in America have. They're just taking advantage of the system," Brill told "Hard Line" host Ed Berliner. "We're the only country in the developed world that doesn't control the price of drugs."
Story continues below video.
Watch Newsmax TV on
DIRECTV Ch. 349, DISH Ch. 223 and Verizon FiOS Ch. 115. Get Newsmax TV on your cable system –
Click Here Now
In his book on Obamacare,
"America's Bitter Pill," Brill detailed how the pharmaceutical industry lobbied Democrats in the Senate and White House to make sure there were not provisions put into the Affordable Care Act that would do anything to control the price of prescription drugs.
"What Obamacare did, it just created tens of millions of more people with access to healthcare, which is a good thing, but the access they got through their health insurance or through government subsidized health insurance basically enabled them to pay the kinds of ridiculous prices for prescription drugs that you're talking about," Brill said.
Following a public outcry, Turing Pharmaceuticals announced Tuesday it would roll back the price of Daraprim to its former price. The startup company had raised the price of the drug, which fights off a dangerous parasitic infection from $13.50 a pill to $750 a pill after purchasing Turing.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.