The Washington Monthly

December 26, 2004

A PHARMACEUTICAL QUIZ....Question #1: Who wrote this op-ed about how healthcare costs are low for some people but high for others?

For instance, elderly people who use a Medicare discount card and have to pay $1,299 annually for a drug that the Department of Veterans Affairs purchases for $322, according to a comparison by Families USA. Or middle-class families that lose health insurance and have to pay $29,500 for an overnight hospital stay, when Medicaid would have paid only $6,000, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It just doesn't make any sense. And, not surprisingly, the companies with the biggest profits — those in the drug industry — have been fighting hardest to maintain the status quo.

....A 2001 study by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen found that drug companies' favorite customers paid just a little over half the retail price. This leaves the 67 million Americans without insurance to pay cash, with no rebates, at double the prices paid by the most-favored customers.

Answer: Peter Rost, vice president of marketing at Pfizer.

Question #2: How much longer do you think Peter Rost will remain a vice president of marketing at Pfizer?

UPDATE: According to several commenters, this is far from the first time that Rost has spoken out like this. So maybe his job is safe after all.

—Kevin Drum 1:31 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (0)

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