The drug makers are huge funders of lawmakers, which is bad for consumers if we ever expect prescription prices to go down.
Democrats and Republican voters can agree that something needs to be done about prescription drug prices, but the politicians get in the way.
GDP Advisors, LLC G. Seth Denson said during this week's Senate hearings, there was more than $2M of pharma lobby money in campaign contributions and PAC money that were asking the questions.
"Until we get people asking questions that aren't paid off by these folks, I don't know that we'll see a lot of change," said Denson.
He said the US government is the single most protector of big pharma because they squash competition by the way they regulate how new drugs get to market.
"If we want to get serious and recognize that free market capitalism works, but it only works when there's competition, the U.S. government needs to get out of competition's way and let the free market work," said Denson.
Senator John Cornyn said at this week's Senate hearing, he learned there are currently 136 patents for the same drug.