This pill used to cost me 10c/pill, now it's $5/pill. I take it 3x day.

Haven't these drugs basically gone through extensive human trial already?

It's not the same. The previous "drug" was really just mixing two existing drugs together. The company hoped they could legally prevent people from mixing those drugs. But the individual unmixed drugs are widely available. The FDA said they would not prevent people from mixing (compounding) drugs.

In this case it's drug on it's own. I.e. manufactured. And for this they do actually have the legal right to be the only ones making it.

The problem doesn't end there. Once these drugs' exclusive rights expire and "generic brand" prescriptions are allowed to compete, most insured patients will still prefer the "name brand" as they are only charged co-pay. Some insurance providers may place restrictions on which drugs are eligible for treatment but this is not the case with traditional U.S. sponsored Medicare/Medicaid (patients are free to choose between "name brand" and "generic brand"). Medicare/Medicaid patients may also be eligible for limited co-pay exemption. ("Why wouldn't I take the 'name brand'? I'm not paying for it./I'm paying the same price anyways.") This further drives up the price of "name brand" medication, simply because the "name brand" can get away with it. "Name brand" suppliers will also cut discounted deals with various insurance companies...no such luck for the uninsured though.

One particularly frustrating example I heard from my sister was about a mother on Medicaid who refused to switch her 19-month old infant from formula to solid food (infants usually make the transition around 7 months), complaining that the child had digestion problems when she tried. (Digestion problems are normal and temporary during the transition.) Formula is more calorie rich than seal milk and nearly as expensive as printer ink, however the patient had to pay for food but didn't have to pay for formula. As a result the infant became obese and developed diabetes - the treatment for which, is also covered by Medicaid.

Meanwhile uninsured/ineligible patients are forced to go for the "generic brand" pills due to a huge price disparity. This wouldn't be so bad as generic brands are generally just as effective, except that suppliers of generic brands can sometimes change who they source their pills from, subtly changing the dosages with them so users must constantly stay on alert to see if their pill changes color or shape as this could be an indication of a shift in supplier and depending on how sensitive the drug is, have mild to severe repercussions.

The Obama health-care reform was seeking to fix this issue by providing a third party government insurance plan which would promote a more transparent market in this arena amongst other things...

At first I was puzzled by the upvotes because pro-monopoly arguments are usually unpopular here, but then I realized that I didn't really express myself clearly and that probably my argument was misunderstood :) So I'm not against drug monopolies, or patents, (or copyright, for that matter) - in fact I'm staunchly pro those things; the problem in this case is the strictness of the FDA, setting an arbitrarily high bar, causing all but one manufacturers to not be able to produce the drug any more.

The point of the article was that the FDA used to approve other manufacturers, but then required higher standards which only one manufacturer can meet. So now there's a de facto monopoly - not because of a patent, but because of the requirements the FDA set (retro-actively). The FDA needs to restrict itself to more basic testing (rather, testing requirements) so that the market can take over in the price setting of the drug through competition.

(I'm not an expert on the chemistry and medical aspects of pharma; actually I don't know anything about it. I don't know if, in the specific case of the article, the additional requirements set by the FDA are really required, or just paranoia. I think the FDA, and similar bodies in general, need to relax on their 'err on the side of caution' principle. To put it extremely - yes it sucks to be harmed by a thus far unknown side effect of a drug or food, but requiring near-100% safety on everything on the market hampers progress, and we can't know if the positive effect outweigh the negative ones. I hypothesize they don't, but until we know, let's lay off the state nannying, and replace it with a clearer mechanism to let consumers know how far something has been tested, so that they can make their own choices on whether or not they want to take/eat the drug/food).

I'll just endure the gout pain, with crutches to walk and sleep all day so that the pain will pass. (with that price for colchicine)