This is the perfect metaphor for our health care situation

Is Congress doing anything about prescription drug prices?

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Yes. Holding hearings. Like the Senate hearing Wednesday which explained exactly why you pay so much.

As one witness put it: “The reason that we’re seeing this is because there are companies that are doing the business math and political math and thinking they can actually get away with it,” said Chester Davis Jr., president and CEO of Association for Accessible Medicines.

For example, there’s a tactic called “pay for delay.” When a company invents a new drug, it gets a short-term monopoly to recoup its investment, after which generic drug-makers can start competing to force the price down.

But in 2008, when the drug Nexium was about to get competition, the company just paid the competitor not to sell the cheaper version and kept it off the market for six years!

Then there’s the Native American strategy. You’ve heard of Restasis, the eye medication? During a hearing, Senator Maggie Hassan described how Allergan Pharmaceuticals tried to keep its Restasis monopoly.

“On Sept. 8 of this year, just one week before its patents were set to be subject of a hearing … Allergan announced it had cut a deal with a Native American tribe in order to shield the Restasis patent from review by exploiting the doctrine of tribal sovereign immunity.”

Yes! They paid the Mohawk Tribe in New York to take over the patent, to protect it from review. Unfortunately for them, a judge saw through this and threw out their patent anyway.

The tribe, by the way, had nothing to do with developing Restasis. It runs a casino.

Which, considering what’s going on in health care right now, is pretty much the perfect metaphor.

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