The high cost of prescription drugs poses a severe financial hardship for millions of senior citizens in the United States. Because Medicare does not cover the cost of prescription drugs, seniors must often spend thousands of dollars on prescription drugs each year, forcing many to skip the medications they need.

One of the root causes of high drug prices is price discrimination by drug manufacturers. The United States is the only developed country that does not protect its consumers from drug price discrimination. As a result, prescription drug prices for seniors without drug coverage in the United States are far higher than the prices charged in other developed nations.

This analysis by the Special Investigations Division of the minority staff of the Committee on Government Reform quantifies the extent of this price discrimination. It compares the prices paid by seniors in the United States for the five most popular brand-name prescription drugs used by seniors with the prices paid for the same drugs by purchasers in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom.