James P. Greenwood: “These prescription drugs, as miraculous as they are and as beneficial as they are, are increasingly expensive. Not only…”

“These prescription drugs, as miraculous as they are and as beneficial as they are, are increasingly expensive. Not only are they expensive, it is not simply that the price of a particular medicine goes up and up and up; but as this chart here shows, the total pharmaceutical spending between 1993 and 1999, the annual increase in those costs, continues to go up. So it is not just, if we look at these pink indications here, the CPI, the Consumer Price Index per year, has been pretty low; but because of the addition of new products on to the market, the increases in some of those products once they get on the market, what is being spent, the costs for all pharmaceuticals paid by individuals and hospitals and insurers continues to skyrocket. It is a situation that demands our response.”