Abbvie's Eye-popping Lobbying Keeps My Wife's Humira Cost High
“When you think about financial distress — debt collectors calling and knocking on doors of households — our research shows that more than half the time now, it is about medical debt,” Mahoney says. “That’s a pretty stunning and uniquely American phenomenon.”
Abbvie spent $ 4 million in the first quarter of 2022 alone on lobbying to keep the law in place that prohibits Medicare from negotiating drug prices. Other pharmacy companies were right behind them paying to keep drug prices high. As I told you a few days ago, the result for me is very practical. Our out-of-pocket costs for the Humira that Abbvie produces are in the neighborhood of $10,000 a year. I don’t care who you are. That hurts. For most Americans medical costs are a very heavy burden that falls hardest on the poor, the elderly, and the Southestern region of the country.
Almost 20% of Americans are saddled with medical debt. The average in the poorest zip codes is $677. In the last decade, more Americans are turned over to collection agencies because of medical debt compared with any other source. Medical debt in collection agencies exceeds that of all other sources combined including credit cards, utilities, and phone bills. Ordinary Americans owe $140 billion in medical debt alone.
Drug costs are a leading part of medical debt. It is a uniquely American political problem. Threatening medical debt is much less common in other developed countries. This is a systems problem and a political problem. We could have better health at lower cost quickly, but our system requires major changes.