Reasons to Support Rx Reform SB 126
February 18, 2010
Last year I ran a bill to achieve the following phamaceutical reforms:
- eliminate financial conflicts of interest on state boards;
- prohibit gifts (except samples) to docs;
- provide disclosures; and
- prohibit the practice of data-mining (reselling your rx info for marketing).
…and it failed.
There ultimately cannot be health care reform (at either the state or federal level) without pharmaceutical prescription reforms.
The rising cost of drugs is the fast growing cost-driver beneath insurance premiums. The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most profitable industries in the world yet a greater number of people can not afford the cost of drugs needed.
The pharmaceutical industry spends approximately $30 billion per year to promote their drugs. Research demonstrates that these funds DO change prescribing behavior and we have seen an increase in the number of medical errors relating to medication errors.
This year I am running a bill that simply addresses pharmaceutical transparency so we can follow our health care dollar in Colorado. It is written to mirror and often over-looked provisions of the federal health care reform bills, that PhRMA publicly supported and spent significant funds to promote its passage. This provision enjoys bipartisan support at the federal level and in other states, but so far not in Colorado.
This is about:
- Cost
- Transparency
- Patient Safety
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