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Billionaire Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA basketball team has earned my respect and admiration. He has invested millions in a company designed to provide affordable medical prescriptions for America. This represents a desperate need because the massive pharmaceutical industry (Big Pharma) is holding the health of Americans as ransom by jacking up prices of prescription drugs to monstrous heights.

On TV, we are bombarded by advertisements about new wonderful drugs. But, what about the price of these wonder drugs? Well, research published recently in the medical journal JAMA estimates that close to half of all new brand-name prescription drugs launched in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021 came with an original price tag of at least $150,000 a year.

Here are some other examples:

• Wall Street companies are buying up pharmaceutical companies and then jacking up the prices of their medicines. Do you remember the Epipen scandal? In 2007, Mylan N.V. acquired the right to market EpiPen as part of its acquisition of Merck KgaA.  The Epipen is a lifesaving device for anaphylactic reactions, which are caused by allergens such as nuts, seafood, and insect bites. In 2009, Mylan began to steadily increase the price of EpiPen. In 2009, the wholesale price (the price which pharmacies paid) was $103.50 for a two-pack of autoinjectors. By July 2013 the price was up to $264.50, and it rose a further 75 percent to $461 by May of 2015. By May of 2016, the price rose again up to $608.61. Over a seven year period, the price of EpiPen had risen about 500% in total.
• The price of life-saving insulin doubled in just the last few years, ensuring that Americans pay eight times what Canadians pay.
• Pfizer announced recently that it will soon raise the price of its publicly fundedCovid-19 shot to between $110 and $130 per dose in the U.S The People's Vaccine Alliance reacted in a statement pointing out that Pfizer's planned price hike would amount to a 10,000% markup above the cost of producing the vaccine, which is estimated to be as low as $1.18 per dose. The U.S. currently pays around $30 per dose for Pfizer's shot.

Billionaire Mark Cuban is actually unique as a billionaire trying to help the American consumers. Typically, billionaires are usually busy trying to buy Republican politicians so they can lower their taxes, or manipulating our democracy with their millions for their own selfish interests. One of these money-gouging miscreants even ran for president of the United States and won!