The staggering increase in prescription drug costs can only make one wonder if one day..... only the wealthy "elite" will be able to afford to live longer.
Prices for brand-name drugs for diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis, cancer, and arthritis are soaring, a survey for Bloomberg News by data provider DRX found. Analysts, meanwhile, predict the first $1 million drug treatment may be just around the corner. The analysis of big-selling drugs found that price increases in the United States have far outpaced inflation since late 2007 for many drug categories. Here are 73 drug brands whose U.S. prices for at least one dosage increased 75 percent or more in the period.
Earl Harford, a retired professor, recently bought a month’s worth of the pills he needs to keep his leukemia at bay. The cost: $7,676, or three times more than when he first began taking the pills in 2001. Over the years, he has paid more than $140,000 from his retirement savings to
