Tag: aarp

Could Innovative California Lower Drug Prices For Everyone?

California may soon drive a hole through Washington’s tolerance for — and protection of — price gouging on drugs. A measure on the November ballot, Proposition 61, would bar state agencies from paying more for prescription drugs than the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs does.

Congress generally prohibits the U.S. government from negotiating prescription drug prices. The VA is an exception. Federal law ensures that it obtains a discount of at least 24 percent off a drug’s list price.

Other countries don’t let drugmakers abuse their citizenry with rapacious pricing. But the U.S. Congress does the drug industry’s bidding, defending business practices that bilk patients, taxpayers and anyone who buys health coverage.

That’s why Mylan got away with hiking the EpiPen price (for Americans) by 500 percent. It’s how Turing Pharmaceuticals could raise the price of a drug used by AIDS patients by some 5,000 percent.

California seems to be fighting back. As a buyer of drugs for about 4.5 million public workers, university employees and others, the state has market muscle. It can refuse to pay indecent price markups. (Prop 61 would not affect Californians on private plans.)

The pharmaceutical industry has amassed $100 million to defeat the measure. Practiced in the art of extortionate pricing, drug companies know how to wield a threat: They could refuse to sell their products to the state of California, depriving millions of needed medications.

But would that happen? I asked economist Uwe Reinhardt, the Princeton expert on health care. He thinks it unlikely.

As long as drug companies can make a profit on an already developed drug, they’re going to sell it. After all, they still make money on the drugs they sell to Canada and Europe at considerably lower prices. Other countries confront drug companies with take-it-or-leave-it propositions, and the companies relent.

We Americans, Reinhardt says, “seem haunted by the theory that unless we allow drug companies to charge us whatever they wish for a pill, innovation will stop. And we fall for that story.”

If Prop 61 became a reality, other state governments would not sit back and continue paying prices well above those charged California. So we have to consider the other scenario — that the drug companies decline to sell to California at VA prices. They would give up a large chunk of the California market but keep the price game going in the rest of the country.

Reinhardt doubts they would play this kind of hardball. Abandoning an entire market would destroy any goodwill they have with doctors and patients. The value of their company name, an intangible asset, could fall, spilling over into other things they sell. Thus, a drug company board member might think twice before authorizing that level of aggression.

Polls find 66 percent of California voters in favor of Prop 61. AARP and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation support the measure. Opponents include some patient advocate groups, fearing that the state’s refusal to pay up might limit their access to drugs. The industry, of course, is fanning those fears.

America’s drug pricing scandal reflects an odd imbalance in what we expect of fellow citizens. Our soldiers risk life and limb fighting terrorist regimes, but we seem unable to ask drug company executives to trim a few million off their exorbitant compensation for the good of the country.

Reinhardt asks, “Is it really essential to compensate the top five layers of executives of drug companies with boats and planes and villas in Tuscany to get these folks to innovate in drug therapy?” The answer is no.

It may take America’s innovator, California, to put an end to the drug pricing scam. Californians, do your duty.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached atfharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Online Scams: How Can You Protect Yourself and Your Family?

Online Scams: How Can You Protect Yourself and Your Family?

Dear Carrie: My mother is quite independent and does a lot of her financial business online. I hear about fraudsters preying on seniors all the time and worry about her falling for a scam. How can I protect her?

Dear Reader: It seems there’s no limit to the imaginative scams that today’s fraudsters can come up with. Just when we’ve all become aware of the email from a “friend” purporting to have been robbed in some far-flung place and needing money, there’s the new scam threatening arrest if you don’t pay back taxes or the tech support scam or—you name it. Seniors are a prime target because they’re perceived as more likely to have assets—and perhaps less likely to be skeptical.

But financial fraud isn’t age specific; we’re all targets. When you consider that the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 269,422 complaints representing more than $800,000,000 in losses in 2014 alone (and it’s estimated that only 15 percent of victims report crimes), you start to understand the enormity of the problem.

So, while it’s great that you want to protect your mother, when it comes to the potential for being scammed, we all need to take heed. My advice would be to sit down with her— and the rest of your family — to discuss best practices for fraud protection both on and off the Internet.

Become Familiar With the Latest Scams

Most scams are designed to defraud you of your money or get your personal information to access that money. Here are a few common frauds we should all be aware of:

—Emails purportedly from government agencies or financial institutions requesting personal and financial information or money

—Calls from familiar sounding charities pressuring you for quick donations by credit card or wire transfer

—Offers of discounted health insurance or low-cost medications

—Goods for sale, such as a car, at below market value, and insistence on a rush sale with payment by wire or to a third party

—Email purportedly from a legitimate collection agency stating that a loan is delinquent and must be paid in full to avoid legal consequences

—Offers for free gifts, vacations or “found money” dependent on some sort of upfront payment, such as a finder’s fee, taxes or delivery charges

—Various investment frauds, including offers of high-yield investments, letters of credit or prime bank notes

—Hot stock tips, especially for “penny stocks,” from unknown callers or e-mails even if they claim to work for well-known brokerage or investment firms

You can find a more complete list of common frauds at fbi.gov. Scam alerts are also posted on ftc.gov. A couple especially of note for seniors are emails supposedly from Social Security and Medicare asking for personal information. Another scam involves the new chip cards where emails, seemingly from credit card issuers, ask you to update account information before receiving your new card. Once you give out the information or click on the link, you’re had!


Review Techniques for not Falling Victim

Scammers are smart and know how to push emotional buttons. While we all hope we won’t be taken in, it happens. So to help protect your mother — and yourself — review the things to do and not do to stay clear of scams:

—Never reply to an unknown email.

—Never click on a link or download information unless you know the sender. Even then you need to be cautious because some links and downloads may contain malware or spyware that can monitor or control your computer use and gain access to your personal and financial information.

—Don’t return a call to a phone number provided in an unknown email, even if it has a local area code.

—Never email personal or financial information such as your social security number, date of birth, passwords. If you receive a suspicious email from a bank or other company requesting such information, contact that company by phone directly. You can report the email to the FBI at www.ic3.gov.

—Make sure you have up-to-date security software on your computer. Create secure passwords, don’t use the same password over multiple sites, and change your passwords periodically.

—Use different passwords for online banking and consider using two-factor authentication, where you enter an additional verification code sent to your phone or a separate device.

—Read your bank, investment and credit card statements.

—Get a copy of your credit report at annualcreditreport.com.

—Designate a single credit card for online purchases and monitor it closely.

And in this age of social media, be cautious about what you put online via social media. Your vacation plans, purchases, identity of family members, birthdays, or special interests can all be fodder for enterprising fraudsters. Also avoid clicking on links on social media sites. You can’t be certain where that link is really taking you.
Stay Informed — and Alert

There’s no way to protect yourself completely, but forewarned is forearmed. Check out the list of Common Fraud Schemes at fbi.gov. Sign up for AARP’s FraudWatch Network (or have your mother sign up). And by all means, if you’ve been the victim of fraud, identity theft or deceptive business practices, file a complaint with the FTC at ftc.gov or by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357).

Unfortunately, in today’s world, we can’t be too trusting or complacent. It’s great to have the convenience of handling our financial business online, but at the same time we must be vigilant in protecting our information and ourselves. If your mother is Internet savvy, she may be more sophisticated than you think about avoiding fraud. But here, too, don’t take anything for granted. Have the conversation now—and check in with her periodically—for both of your sakes.

Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER(tm), is board chair and president of Charles Schwab Foundation and author of The Charles Schwab Guide to Finances After Fifty, available in bookstores nationwide. Read more at http://schwab.com/book. You can e-mail Carrie at askcarrie@schwab.com. This column is no substitute for an individualized recommendation, tax, legal or personalized investment advice. Where specific advice is necessary or appropriate, consult with a qualified tax advisor, CPA, financial planner or investment manager. To find out more about Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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Photo: An employee of a money changer holds a stack of U.S.  Dollar notes before giving it to a customer in Jakarta, October 8, 2015.  REUTERS/Beawiharta

AARP To Super Committee: Don’t Eviscerate Social Security, Medicare

The AARP, the nation’s largest senior citizen advocacy group and among the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington, urged the Super Congress not to roll back the welfare state yesterday.

“Americans want Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid to be strengthened as part of a broader conversation around health and economic security, not one focused solely on deficit reduction,” Rand said. “AARP believes that the American public deserves a seat at the table in any forum, including the newly created super committee, and we ask that members of the new committee actively solicit input from people across the country, particularly older Americans,” said A. Barry Rand, AARP’s CEO.

The group warned that cuts to the cherished programs “could undermine the standard of living today and for future middle-class generations.”

The AARP came under fire from the left for reportedly shifting its position to favor some “reforms” of the programs (as opposed to outright opposition to changes during the privatization of Social Security fight in 2005) this past year, but this seems mostly to be a question of rhetoric — and a desire to be part of what they see as an inevitable conversation about their members’ top priority.

UPDATE: AARP to Accept Social Security Benefit Cuts

UPDATE: Though the strategic change is still noteworthy, Brien Beutler [has] a statement from the AARP denying there was a substantive policy shift here:

“Let me be clear – AARP is as committed as we’ve ever been to fighting to protect Social Security for today’s seniors and strengthening it for future generations. Contrary to the misleading characterization in a recent media story, AARP has not changed its position on Social Security.

“First, we are currently fighting some proposals in Washington to cut Social Security to reduce a deficit it did not cause. Social Security should not be used as a piggy bank to solve the nation’s deficit. Any changes to this lifeline program should happen in a separate, broader discussion and make retirement more secure for future generations, not less.

Via Kevin Drum at Mother Jones, the AARP, despite Paul Ryan’s Medicare voucher plan being massively unpopular, would seem to have adopted a new strategy in the wake of centrist think tanks and editorial boards keeping up their clamoring for “entitlement reform” of some kind or another:

AARP, the powerful lobbying group for older Americans, is dropping its longstanding opposition to cutting Social Security benefits, a move that could rock Washington’s debate over how to revamp the nation’s entitlement programs….”The ship was sailing. I wanted to be at the wheel when that happens,” said John Rother, AARP’s long-time policy chief and a prime mover behind its change of heart….There are limits to how far AARP is willing to go. The group will accept cuts, but won’t champion them, and it is particularly leery of certain concepts such as eliminating benefits for wealthier recipients….It wants tax increases to fill most of the program’s financial hole, and it insists that a deal must be crafted apart from broader deficit-reduction negotiations.

Drum welcomes the development, as he thinks very modest reductions in benefits can be achieved in concert with tax increases and no rise in the retirement age (and certainly not Ryan’s voucher scheme), and that the program would be put on much firmer ground politically, depriving Republicans of any justification whatsoever for making another run at gutting it. He is likely to be in the minority, though, in a progressive community that AARP joined in in 2005 in definitively opposing Social Security cuts and privatization. [Wall Street Journal]