Attorneys general from nearly all U.S. states, Washington, DC, and several territories filed a lawsuit this week, alleging more than two dozen drug companies and executives have been engaging in price-fixing for generic drugs.
The lawsuit, which was filed in Connecticut, named 26 companies and subsidiaries as well as 10 former or current executives as defendants. The lawsuit filed this week was the third since 2016 stemming from a wide-ranging investigation.
"We're taking on what we believe to be the largest corporate cartel in history, " Connecticut Attorney General William Tong told Cheddar.
"This is part of a huge multi-state effort, 51 states and territories taking on the generic drug industry for price-fixing, for illegally dividing market shares in violation of our state and federal antitrust laws," he said.
About 90 percent of all prescriptions filled in the United States are for generic drugs, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Generics are supposed to be the cheaper option because the industry is set up to encourage competition among manufacturers in order to drive prices down. Instead, prices have skyrocketed, sometimes by as much as 4,000 percent according to Tong, bringing in more than $100 billion a year for the industry.
The situation is "really scary, and frankly it touches almost every consumer," he said while adding, "Nobody is immune from this, and it's a huge fraud on the American people — in all corners of this industry they're stealing billions upon billions of dollars from all of us and our families."
A legislative package to end the government shutdown appears on track. A handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to advance the bill after what's become a deepening disruption of federal programs and services. But hurdles remain. Senators are hopeful they can pass the package as soon as Monday and send it to the House. What’s in and out of the bipartisan deal has drawn criticism and leaves few senators fully satisfied. The legislation includes funding for SNAP food aid and other programs while ensuring backpay for furloughed federal workers. But it fails to fund expiring health care subsidies Democrats have been fighting for, pushing that debate off for a vote next month.
Sabrina Siddiqui, National Politics Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins to break down the SNAP funding delays and the human cost of the ongoing shutdown.
Arguments at the Supreme Court have concluded for the day as the justices consider President Donald Trump's sweeping unilateral tariffs in a trillion-dollar test of executive power.
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for a second time this year as it seeks to shore up economic growth and hiring even as inflation stays elevated. The move comes amid a fraught time for the central bank, with hiring sluggish and yet inflation stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. Compounding its challenges, the central bank is navigating without much of the economic data it typically relies on from the government. The Fed has signaled it may reduce its key rate again in December but the data drought raises the uncertainty around its next moves. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters that there were “strongly differing views” at the central bank's policy meeting about to proceed going forward.
