Sickening greed: Doctors, hospitals condemn out-of-control drug prices as US Senate investigation begins

A US Senate investigation of drug-price spikes at four companies has kicked off with specialists from all corners of the health-care system testifying that they’re largely powerless to manage the out-of-control prescription costs.

The hearing launches the Special Committee on Ageing’s investigation into the soaring prices of old drugs, including the notorious recent overnight price hike of Daraprim from US$18 to US$750. Doctors and policy experts offered a slew of proposed policy solutions, such as expediting applications for generic drugs to increase competition and requiring companies to reveal how much drugs really cost to make.

But the written testimony submitted to the committee in advance of Tuesday’s first hearing underlined a stark fact about the current US system, too: Doctors, companies that manage prescription drug benefits, hospitals, and health care policy experts alike feel fairly powerless to control high drug prices - because they are allowed.

For instance, one testified that an infant in Alabama needed a treatment that had increased from US$54 a month to US$3,000 a month, causing the pharmacist to scramble for a solution. A kidney transplant patient in Baltimore experiencing hallucinations as her medical team tried to obtain a drug once easily available.

“This is a life-threatening infection, your company has restricted access to the drug, and you’re not open on the weekend? Are you kidding me? We’re paying so much for this drug. Why can't you stay open on the weekend?” said Annie Antar, a clinical fellow in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins Hospital on the team that treated the Baltimore woman in an interview. “I felt like I was in a third-world country, I felt like I was in a Soviet country. This isn't how American medical systems work.”