Drug Makers Jack Prices

Drug makers may have promised $8 billion in savings to legislators writing health-care reform, but here’s what they didn’t tell us: In the past year, they’ve raised prices by $10 billion. The 9-percent increase in cost for brand-name prescription drugs is the highest rate of inflation since 1992. The Consumer Price Index, meanwhile, fell 1.3 percent in the last year. Critics charge that the companies are trying to establish a higher price base before Congress’s cost-saving measures kick in.