As the cost of prescription drugs continues to rise in the nation that already pays the most in the world for medications, federal legislators and ballot-measure committees are proposing ways to curb those prices. But pharmaceutical companies, worried their profit margins will decline under the pending proposals, are spending millions of dollars against the initiatives — and in one political bellwether state, they are employing a controversial tactic that uses shell companies to let them evade longstanding campaign finance disclosure laws.
In Ohio, the drug industry faces Issue 2, the Ohio Drug Price Relief Act — a citizen-initiated ballot measure designed to prevent state agencies, including the state Department of Medicaid, from purchasing drugs at rates any higher than the lowest amount paid by the federal Department of Veterans Affairs, which negotiates with drug companies and saves between 20 and 24 percent on drug costs.
