Data On Drug Price Comparisons - And The Myth Of Compromised Physicians

[anon79999497]

The response to my last post so far was as predicted by what I said in the post. It is very difficult for people to get around the idea that they have heard for the past two decades - namely “Damn you Big Pharma!” Over the past 20 years we have repeatedly heard all of the concerns about physicians essentially being bribed by Big Pharma in the form of speaker’s fees, free lunch, various trinkets, ghost written research, and free vacations. We have seen physicians criticized by a member of Congress for failing to disclose income from sources outside of their academic appointments. We have seen psychiatrists selected out from other physicians with regard to Big Pharma financing despite the work of a well known non-partisan watchdog showing that they are nowhere near the top of the list in terms of total reimbursement or frequency. Many people have made a career out of adding various conspiracy theories to the basic Big-Pharma<->physician conspiracy and how it has added unnecessary costs to the health care system, put patients at unnecessary risk, and compromised professional ethics. The only major change that I have detected is the elimination of the free lunch at Grand Rounds. I do so appreciate that. There was nothing that triggered my misophonia more than the sounds of mastication while I was trying to listen to lecturer. Now that all of those evil Big Pharma incentives have been eliminated and the risk of public shaming is in place through at least two databases, it would follow that Big Pharma should be hurting - right? We should finally be getting reasonable priced pharmaceuticals - right? Not if the following slide from the Kaiser Family Foundation is to be believed:

Data On Drug Price Comparisons - And The Myth Of Compromised Physicians