FTC WARNS ABOUT HEALTH INSURANCE SCAM

 

The Federal Trade Commission is advising people to hang up on telephone calls that threaten a fine for not having health insurance. The calls direct the recipient to someone who claims to be enforcing the health insurance law and attempts to glean the consumer's full name, birth date, Social Security number and income.  People who work in the Marketplace don’t make cold calls, and they never ask for personal information. If you get a call like this, hang up.

The phone numbers showed up with a local area code. The recorded message sounded urgent: “You need to buy health insurance or face a fine. To learn more, press 1.” A person who works in the Health Insurance Marketplace got the call and knew it was fishy, so she pressed 1. The operator claimed to ‘work with the law,’ and asked for the person’s full name, date of birth, phone number, income information and Social Security number. The person who got the call knew it was nonsense, so she hung up and contacted the FTC.

If you get a recorded sales call, but you didn’t give the caller written permission to call you, the call is illegal. Don’t press 1 to speak to the operator or get your name taken off the list, and don’t give any personal information. If you respond, you’ll probably get more calls.

If you want information about health insurance in your state, visit HealthCare.gov. or contact us here at Affincon.com.  If you get a call like this, please report it to the FTC.

 

DRUG COMPANIES HIKE PRICES

After Martin Shkreli raised the price of anti-parasitic drug Daraprim more than 50-fold to $750 a pill last year, he said he wasn’t alone in taking big price hikes.

As it turns out, the former drug executive was right. A survey of about 3,000 brand-name prescription drugs found that prices more than doubled for 60 and at least quadrupled for 20 since December 2014.

Among the biggest increases was Alcortin A, a combination steroid and antibiotic gel to treat eczema and skin infections: The price soared 1,860 percent, or almost 20-fold, during the period. And a vial of Aloprim, a Mylan NV drug for cancer complications, more than doubled, according to the survey by DRX, a provider of price-comparison software to health plans.

Skyrocketing prices are getting increased scrutiny ahead of a U.S. congressional hearing this week: Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings, ranking member on a committee that is probing drug pricing, said Tuesday that pricing “tactics are not limited to a few ‘bad apples,’ but are prominent throughout the industry.”

Even after soaring prices became an issue in the U.S. presidential campaign, the cost of many drugs has continued to rise at annual rates of more than 10 percent.  Drug makers raised the prices of products as wide-ranging as erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, heart treatments, dermatology medicine and even brands that long have lost their patents. While specialty companies have had the steepest hikes, giants such as Pfizer Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline Plc kept pushing through smaller rises.

“The data shows that price increases are an integral part of the business plan,” said Jim Yocum, executive vice president at DRX.

Pharmaceutical companies often boost prices around the end and the start of the year, and the scale of recent increases was higher than what Yocum has seen in the past few years. About 400 formulations of brand-name drugs went up at least 9.9 percent since early December, according to DRX.

 

Click here to read article: Bloomberg (02/02/16)