Perhaps sticker shock in the pharmacy shouldn’t come as a surprise

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

In analyzing shockingly high price increases for prescription drugs -- shocking to consumers, anyway -- the General Accounting Office has identified 416 products that probably caused prescription-pickup apoplexy in pharmacies nationwide from 2000 to 2008.

The agency looked at the frequency of price surges (often between 100% and 499%), common characteristics of the drugs and reasons for the changes.

Here’s the highlights page and the full report.

The dearth of similar drugs and limited competition each come up a lot. So do patents.

Here are two recent Opinion pieces on drug pricing.

-- Healthcare reform without drug price controls? That’s sick, by Melody Petersen, the author of ‘Our Daily Meds.’

-- Limiting drug prices means limiting future cures, by John E. Calfee, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

The headlines summarize their positions quite nicely.

-- Tami Dennis