One prescription. That means more of us are feeling the effects of rising prices. Last year overall spending on prescription drugs jumped 12. 2 to nearly 300 billion dollars. Thats five times what prices jumped in 2013. Later in the show we will talk about one reason for that spike. Expensive new speciality drugs to treat hepatitis c. It is not just new drugs fuelling the jump in spending. The wall street journal analysed prices for top 30 selling drugs, including old medicines, it showed increases averaging 76 from 2010 to 2014. That was more than elite times general eight times general inflation. Companies rely on increases to provide sales growth. That helps when some of the demand for the drugs is weakening. The anger over rising drug prices has ramped up because of this guy, martin. He described it would be fine to raise the price of an older drug used by aids and cancer patient by more than 5,000 . He is a new brand of ceos of buying rights to old drugs and jacking up their prices. At a hearing on wednesday, senator referred to news that he had paid 2 Million Dollars for the only copy of the latest album by a rap group. Take a listen. I noticed in the morning paper this is the same guy who thought it was a great idea to pay millions of dlors for the only existing dollars for the only existing album there is something funny about a United States senator making reference to a rap group, but the debate over fills and profits over pills and profits is not a joke. Anyone who thought this brash young ceo might back down in the heat of the criticism by prominent political figures has been proven wrong at 32 he quickly became the poster child of corporate agreed this summer when he greed when he raised the price of a drug from 13 to 750 a pill. He drew the wrath of the public. He was called a spoiled brass by donald trump. He was accused of price gouging. It is used to treat hiv and Cancer Patients with weak immune systems to fight a parasite paras, itc infection. I probably would have raised the price higher is probably what i would have done. Why in some i think Health Care Prices are inelastic. I could have raised it higher. Noone wants to say it, noone is proud of it t but this is a capitalist society, system and rules and my investors expect me to back them, to go to 100 of the profit curve that were all taught in mba class. Reporter we made repeated requests to speak with him but got no response. The discount was to be discounted to some hospitals by up to 50 , but that still leaves the drug at 375 per pill. Thats call a joke. This organization represents aids drug assistance programs nationwide. He met with the company in washington dc demanding that the price be restored to the original price. I think they engaged in some speculation and they speculated with patients lives. They bought a drug where they knew there wouldnt be competition and he held people hostage for it. Thats not how we do drug pricing in u. S. Reporter he said the profits will go into research. Doctors say it isnt needed because the version current version is fine. Were not going to stand by and say were not going to be able to use this medicine. People are working on magivering work arounds, and one is what if we can get the compound that goes into making the drug the powder that is making the fill and make the fill ourselves pill ourselves. Reporter that has come in the form of an alternative of express scripts. The drug itself is not fda approved, but its ingredients are what we rather have daraprim yes. If we cant get it, we have to make our own. Reporter he doesnt seem phased. He has been busy Live Streaming his activities and taunting critics like hillary clinton. Tweeting her try to be a ceo and maximise profits and not get kicked outer of a company. Reporter as you might imagine touring was a bulls eye was a criticism at wednesdays hearing on cap toll hill by the special committee on ageing. No representatives from the company attended the hovering to explain their pricing. Law makers heard from health care experts. The director for the center of hospital finance and management from the school of Public Health and he joins me now. Thanks for joining us tonight. We see theres no shortage of outrage about rising drug prices. Beyond all this anger, how much realistically can be done. The price hikes are legal and is there anything that can be done . Creating the drug in a slightly different way. You dont get quite the fda approval, but you do get access to the drug and thats the way around it. Its not the best answer, but it is an answer. What you really want to do there are complications with that, though, right . Onto the market and thats a long time. So i might say its just not worth it, but if i could get it on the market in six months, it would be a huge difference and somebody like touring or the next touring probably wouldnt choose to actually go and do what he is doing because for six months you cant make enough money to make all this worthwhile. For two or three years it probably does make sense with touring, were talking about an older drug, right, but there are new life saving drugs coming down the pipe. Weve seen and we will be talking later about a new drug to fight hepatitis c that can cure the disease, but some have made the argument that medicare should be able to negotiate directly with drug manufacturers. Do you see that as being the answer in terms of curbing these skyrocketing prices . Will choose to use it for as long as he possibly can. So if medicare came in and negotiated with somebody whose not willing to negotiate, then theyre not going to get very far. For most Drug Companies they clearly would, but for him probably not. Just because of who he is and his operating model moving away from touring, overall we see the outrage. Peoples blood just boils when they see the price of drugs that they need, in some cases to stay alive. What is the answer . Price goes down dramatically. What weve seen over the last several years is a lot of consolidation in the generic industry, so theres not nearly the lovely of competition level of competition that we saw five or 10 years ago. Somebody like the federal trade commission, the department of health and human services, the congress that is to take a careful look at the level of competition thats going on. In the brand side, there are some very expensive drugs and hepatitis c drug, for example, that you mentioned, only about one in ten americans who should benefit from this drug, about three million americans, only about one in ten of them are actually getting it. The reason why is its so expensive, that most people just cant afford it and that to a lot of the extent the va cant afford it nor can the medicaid what can be done to make those drugs more accessible is the question. Essentially the thing to do is what happens in other countries. They essentially say the most were willing to pay for this drug is x, and when they say that, then the Drug Companies know how much they can charge because if they charge more than that, they essentially know that the country wont buy that drug. We in the United States havent been willing to make that statement until we really are were going to end up paying what we do now, which is about twice as much as what other countries pay for exactly the same drug a lot more to talk about. We appreciate your coming on the show tonight. Certainly this debate is going to be going on for quite some time. Gerard anderson from the john hopkins school. Coming up patient. Im not sick enough. They want me to get sicker an invitation from people a deeper look at the divide in chicago. A lot of people here are angry. We can do something different. The only Live National news show at 11 00 eastern. We start with breaking news. Lets take a closer look. Were talking tonight about pills and profits and the debate over rising prices for prescription drugs. A report minces no words with a current drug to treat hepatitis c. The report offers little comfort to the patients who need the drug to stay alive. It raises the question of how much were willing to pay to survive. America tonight gee joiechenn has the report reporter the end stage of the disease is horrible. It can take decades for the liver to be destroyed, but unchecked, it eventually will. There arent a whole lot of pleasant ways to day and this is a to die. The bleeding can be extremely difficult to control reporter in the final stages, the damage can even reach the brain. It really requires a lot of specialised care. It can be very painful, it is really difficult to watch if youre a loved one and watching someone suffer. Reporter two of the most common causes of Liver Disease in the United States are alcoholism and hepatitis c, a blood born illness often spread through dirty needles. Hospital care and common medical procedures have also led to outbreaks. An estimated three million americans have the hepatitis c virus. Experts warn most of the infected dont even know it. I didnt know until i had a hip replacement in 05. So they had to do preliminary blood work, dental wood, blah, blah. Thats when it came up positive reporter she traced her infection back to a tattoo. At first she didnt recognise how severely her health had become compromised. Every now and then i feel lethargic, almost like an flulike feeling reporter your big fear why your liver . Because if you get cirhosis, thats it and im not ready to die. Reporter under treatment for other unrelated health problems, she asked her doctor about a new hepatitis c drug she saw on tv. He explained a little bit better how much its the latest thing and everybody is using it and it can treat you in eight to 12 weeks reporter its a cure . Reporter what did you think about this drug . Reporter before you get sicker. Yes. Reporter parvone and a related drug from the same drug maker have proven to be more effective than older hepatitis c therapys with cure rates well over 90 in three months of treatment or less. The cost of the cure is nearly 100,000 per patient. Its very expensive. So even if there is a cut rate discount, its still very expensive. Reporter jay costman in her doctor. Like most of his lowincome patients at the john bell health center, his health care is medicaid. We treat all inner city, low income predominantly, either insured or unassured patients reporter that means taxpayerser and states are left to foot the bill. Across the nation states have thrown up road blocks. Most states have added restrictions that delay or make it difficult for hepatitis c medicaid patients to get their treatment. Her application was rejected four times. Denied completely because it is not medically necessary because you do not need the hepatitis meet the hepatitis c criteria reporter they wont pay for the mirror axle drug until her disease gets worse. The doctor has said youre sick enough yes reporter the health say youre not they want me to get sicker. Reporter her experience is not uncommon. Privacy insurers and medicaid reject patients who are not deemed sick enough. To a patient like this woman, it is a cruel and possibly life threatening rejection. But for Medicaid Programs which provide health care for the poor, it is a pragmatic and necessary decision. Mat sailers organization directors. If we were to simply open up the doors and say yes, everyone who is suffering from this disease at any stage, at any condition, everyone gets it, we would be spending as much on that one drug as we would on every other single drug in the program combined. Reporter youre going to bankrupt the system yes. We would have to figure out a way to stop providing as much nursing home care for frail seniors, stop providing as much prenatal care for pregnant women or something else. Reporter so youre telling society weve got to choose. Medicaid has to choose every day. We cover 70 million americans and we do so under very, very constrained budgetary parameters. Reporter he says even though pharmaceutical companies are required by law to negotiate with Medicaid Programs, the maker of the break through hepatitis c treatment resisted giving the states much of a deal they didnt want to play because they didnt have to. They knew that they had the product, lot you was reporter the only product that works this well yes. So they can sort of say, no, we think you will pay our price because we think you will have to reporter the drug maker declined an interview, but in an email defended the price of its treatments. Arguing that the onetime cost of the drug pales in comparison to the lifetime cost of treating the disease. With drug costs already as much as 15 of state medicaid budgets, add more mirror axle drugs being invented. Analysts say hepatitis c drugs could be just the first test of how far Americas Health care budget can be sprigged and who stretched and who the society is willing to pay for the bulk of the people receiving the benefit are people who are not paying into the system in the first place. Many of them if they have contracted the disease due to their own behaviour and theyre going to potentially continue to pursue health threatening behaviours, even once theyre cured of the disease its an issue reporter the argument doesnt hold water with this doctor knowing he must treat the patients knowing that they cant get the medicines that will save their lives my job is to make people feel better and try to cure deceases that we can cure and so when you know you can do that but you cant because of availability, its you do, you feel like youre letting someone down. Reporter he says repeated delays and denials of approval for hepatitis c treatments for poor patients is discriminatory. The Public Perception of the injection drug user who is doing it to themselves. So, therefore, why should we spend money on that. Do we withhold cardiac surgery for people because they have high cholesterol because theyre overweight . No. We dont do that. So we shouldnt withhold, again, curative lifesaving therapys for people who have another underlying condition. Reporter this woman who has no history of iv drug use sees the repeated denials as proof insurers dont care if she lives or dies. I think thats what the Insurance Companies want you to do, get discarets reporter she didnt about to give up. Im worth having this drug. Im worth it. Reporter even if its a hundred thousand dollars . Now sympathy will be able to she will be able to access the hepatitis c medication she says she desperately needs. Back to the neighborhood where donald trump came from and some people who have no idea where he is coming from. Donald trump, you cant deny that he knows how to get attention. His plan to ban muslims from entering america have been widely condemned around the world. The neighborhood he once called home is no exception. Thats what we found when we visited the streets of queens new york where a young donald trump grew up. These are the new faces in Donald Trumps old neighborhood. This center is a few blocks from his childhood home. Thats makes the proximity to his claim to ban all the more stening to the man gathering to say morning prayers as an american, new yorker, when i heard it, its really hard breaking and shocking that someone in new york talks like this people are shocked. When i say people, their heart is breaking right now reporter where donald trump grew up is one of the most diverse places in america. 2. 3 Million People live here and nearly half of the population is foreign born. Reporter in a sign of the growing muslim population, there r93 mosques in queens alone. The trump family name here is still visible. Mostly white residents lived in this community when trump was here. Nearby store fronts show how much that world has changed as immigrants from bangladesh to india to africa now call this home. One neighbour didnt want to go on camera said that trump hasnt changed with the world. This man has lived here for nearly 50 years. Reporter what was your reaction to what he said the other day . Reporter along with condemnation of trumps comments on muslims, there is concern. Leaders of this mosque say they recently installed security cameras and with donald trump becoming more of their conversation, they have this message for him come visit us and see who we are. You dont know us. How can you make a statement without knowing us . Reporter thats our show for today. Thanks for joining us. The news continues here on al a wave of fear is sweeping over europe. Charlie hebdo in paris, verviers in belgium, belgian youngsters threatening to mount attacks from syria. Terror, all in the name of islam