Hedge Funds Attack American Health Care
It ain't just Martin Shitstain.
http://hedgeclippers.org/hedgepapers-no-22-hedge-funds-attack-american-health-care/
Its not just one highly unethical man: dozens of high-flying financial speculators at hedge funds and private equity firms are driving up the price of pharmaceuticals across the country.
Out of the twenty-five drugs with the fastest-rising prices over the past two years, twenty are owned or have been acquired by firms with significant activity from hedge fund, private equity, or venture capital firms.
Yes, you read that right: 80% of the drugs with the fastest-rising prices were involved in hedge fund, private equity or similar speculative attacks in the past two years.
The exact circumstances of each deal varies, but the outcome is always the same: branded pharmaceuticals drugs for which no lower-cost generic alternative drug exists see their prices increase many times over to satisfy the greed of speculative investors.
One company that stands out in all this is Valeant, a drug manufacturer that partnered in 2014 with a hedge fund called Pershing Square Capital Management to attempt the takeover of Allergan, another pharmaceutical company.
Comment by Don McCanne of PNHP: The full Hedge Clippers article, available at the link above, provides many examples of outrageous drug price manipulation by hedge fund, private equity, or venture capital firms.
These confiscatory price increases have not been for financing new drug research, rather they have been for the sole purpose of redistributing money from patients in need of these drugs to the the money managers at the very top of the income and wealth scales, further compounding our crisis of inequality.
Government intervention is imperative. It would be automatic if we enacted a single payer national health program.