Drug Prices Skyrocketing

The cost of brand name prescription medications continues to skyrocket. Even though the economy has been in desperate shape and overall cost increases for consumer goods have been flat, drug companies have been raising prices. The government’s General Accountability Office reported “extraordinary price increases” for hundreds of brand-name medicines.
People taking antibiotics, antidepressants and medicines for heart disease were especially hard hit. A few brands that made the GAO’s extraordinary price increase list include Abilify, Ambien, Levaquin, Lyrica and Zyprexa. In some cases the increases have been more than 500 percent. Between 2000 and 2008 the number of price increases doubled. Some experts speculate that recent price hikes were made to beat the health care reform deadline.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10201.pdf