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Last updated on Wednesday, December 13, 2017
(UNDATED) - Between 2011 and 2015, the nation’s 10 largest drug makers carved a new profit center for themselves.
A report from Americans for Tax Fairness calls it price-gouging and coughs up evidence that Big Pharma - as the Big Ten are sometimes called - raised prices for their most prescribed medicines over the five-year period by 40 percent and more - in some cases as much as 71 percent - a rate that exceeded the national inflation rate by 14 times.
Edward Zuckerman of Talk Media reports, one reason for the cash harvest: Drug companies dictate prices paid by Medicare while government is prohibited from negotiating a better deal for taxpayers.
Fueled by price hikes, the big drug companies celebrated a 42 percent jump in profits, from $58.8 billion in 2011 to $83.4 billion in 2016; and, they deferred paying an estimated $133 billion in federal taxes on $500 billion that they parked in foreign tax havens, the ATF report said.
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