A front page story in the Wall Street Journal last week on how predatory drug companies are sharply raising prices of older medicines was overshadowed by coverage of the House’s passage of a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.The revealing thing about the story was not that a pharmaceutical company acquired the rights to a niche prescription drug and then jacked up the price — in this case a drug used to treat muscular dystrophy.Sadly, that has been a business model employed too often by too many opportunistic pharmaceutical companies looking for easy and often obscene profits.Rather, the story was noteworthy in that it appears pressure by Congress, regulators and patients caused the owner of the company to abandon the strategy and sell the company due to the backlash over the price increase. Analysts expect the new owner of the company to charge less for the drug but probably more than what the drug can be purchased for in foreign countries.Perhaps the story is an inflection point in the sordid history of predatory drug pricing of specialty and generic drugs by companies that acquire the rights only to jack up the prices because they control the market. We hope that is the case. It’s good to see lawmakers and consumers fighting back.Consumers have been priced out of acquiring a growing number of life-sustaining drugs because of pure greed. This has to stop.But it won’t under the health care reform bill the House passed last week which doesn’t truly address the problem. In that way it is similar to the bill it seeks to replace.Obamacare did little, if anything to rein in the price of prescriptions or prevent the predatory price-gouging that is occurring in the drug industry.The fact is pharmaceutical firms in America have long enjoyed a hands-off approach by government to pricing products. They can set their own prices and there are no restrictions on profit margins. Moreover, there is little transparency into the pricing process. That isn’t the case in other countries where the same drugs are manufactured and sold for a fraction of the cost.Since 2010, overall prices for U.S.-made pharmaceuticals have increased about six times as much as goods and services overall.Obamacare left the pharmaceutical industry largely unregulated while requiring it to pay for some of the law’s increased coverage. It’s not surprising that entrepreneurs have jumped into the fray seeking to take advantage of market conditions.States are starting to push back. Fed up with skyrocketing drug prices that are consuming greater chunks of their Medicaid budgets each year, some states are starting to pass legislation addressing price gouging.To put the problem in perspective, here in Missouri, the increase in the cost of specialty drugs in Mo Healthnet Pharmacy program in next year’s budget is almost $80 million. That is actually less than the increase has been in previous years but is still a tremendous strain on the budget.On Sunday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich knocked the Republican health care bill as inadequate. Kasich said the bill should have given governors more leverage in dealing with pharmaceutical companies and negotiating the high costs of drugs.We agree with Kasich, who makes more sense every time he weighs in on national policy matters. It’s ridiculous that a bill that proponents contend will lower health care costs, fails to address this critical issue.If Congress is serious about reforming health care in this country, it should start by drawing a bright line against predatory price-gouging by drug companies.