research. joining me now are cnbc s meg terrell and dr. cory a. bear, a practicing physician and professor at louisiana state university health sciences center. so, meg, you got a chance to interview him. you know this world, obviously, a little bit better than i do. so, he s not putting he s saying the price will come down now a little bit. we were at 13 bucks. now we re at $7.550. do we have a sense where in that range he can still make a profit but it s still affordable? you can presume he could have made a profit at the old price. but they bought the drug for $50 million to $60 million. after spending that much money to buy it, they had to raise the price to recoup the cost. so the old company, it was reported that it only took about $1 to manufacture each one of these pill. so they were making a profit at $13.50. so it s a little curious that he s reversing course today, when he was so solid yesterday, saying, no, he s not going to lower the price of this drug. and he was sayi
going to do that? are they still going to have the funds that are going to come in to do that? you have to question the guy s whole motive. if you re saying $50 million to $60 million to acquire it. and we re talking about a drug, i guess it s about 10,000 people that use this drug regularly, with it sounds like he probably can t bring it down that much without now losing a ton of money. and shkreli was also saying a couple handful of thousand of people who take this drug. and it is a very rarely used drug, be that doesn t mean that it s not important for those folks. it s very questionable where this price will end up and i hope he s very transparent about where he does price it. dr. cory a. bear, let me bring you in. that justification he offered, and we hear this a lot about one of the great things about the united states is innovation in pharmaceuticals. we re able to come up with these drugs that deal with niche diseases, niche problems, and you need money to go into researc
pressure everybody congressional republicans, but the 2012 super bowl champs are step up. the baltimore ravens have agreed to help market the law to the people of maryland. joining me now in our rapid response panel, dr. cory a bear, ceo of black health tv.com and an assistant professor at lsu, dr. ronnie woodfield, medical director for the national association of free clinics in new orleans and joan walsh, salon.com. joan, you first. will bill clinton have an impact and will we win the pr war here? i think he will have an impact, ed. i m glad to see him doing. i d like to see him boil some of those messages down and put them in ads. one of the things he did i liked the most was he talks about the 27 million women and 26 million men who have already gotten preventive health screenings, whether it s mammograms or prostate cancer screening or even well baby care. all sorts of things they re getting for free they used to have to maybe pay something for, he s really putting the numbers
embracing the idea that this, you know, i m going to take another look. i think that obamacare may be able to help my family. yeah, no doubt about that. well, we like the benefit of having you on the ready to really explain this to us. congresswoman jan schakowsky, thank you so much for your time tonight. it s my pleasure, thank you. for more, let me bring in wendell potter, senior analyst with the center for public integrity, and dr. cory a. bear with the professional health sciences center. wendell, let me begin with you. is mcconnell being dishonest by saying that kentuckyians would be able to keep their exchange if obamacare is repealed? he s being very dishonest. because the state just could not keep its exchange if it were repealed. and here s the thing. if what mcconnell is advocating is repeal, which he does, then the insurance companies would once again be in charge of the health care system, as it was before the law was passed. the people who have gotten coverage in k