Public Forum Pro Case
Resolved: The United States federal government should impose price controls on the pharmaceutical industry
Me and my partner affirm, Resolved: The United States federal government should impose price controls on the pharmaceutical industry
We first want to note that the resolution specifically states “impose price controls”, not specifying the magnitude of said changes, thus an imposition of price control of 1 dollar or 1 million dollars still favors the pro side.
Contention 1: Drastic overpay in current status quo:
Merelli 2015 shows that Americans pay far more than any other country for prescription drugs. In fact, Americans overpay for every aspect of healthcare: procedures and services are the most expensive in the world, because efficiency plays no role in rewarding the healthcare providers. As Dr. Stephen Ondra—who works as chief medical officer for customer-owned health insurance company Health Care Service Corporation—told Quartz, “right now inefficiency is rewarded, the more you do to get an outcome, the more you make.”
Winegarden 2017 of EconoStats proves that It is also important to note that generic medicines are significantly cheaper in the U.S. compared to the other major industrialized countries. In fact, total pharmaceutical spending as a percentage of total health care spending is lower in the U.S. (12.2 percent) than the average for the 30 nations that comprise the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, (16.9 percent). This is due to, in part, the prevalence of generic medicines that are more affordable here than in other OECD nations.
The absolute necessity and need for abundance of prescription drugs has risen according Atlas 2018, saying Senior citizens make up about 12% of the population but account for more than 34% of medication use. More than 15 million seniors take five or more medications, and that number has tripled from 1988 to 2010, according to a study by Charlesworth in 2015. Health savings accounts are prohibited for seniors, but gains in life spans necessitating medical care for decades after Medicare eligibility and the recognition of the massive market power of the elderly argue for permitting Medicare beneficiaries to hold such accounts.
A by product of this high pricing is shown by an article by NASHP, in 2017 stating In early 2016, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office threatened to apply the Commonwealth’s unfair trade practice laws against Gilead Sciences Inc. for its high-pricing pricing of its new Hepatitis C treatments, which included Harvoni. Between 2014 and early 2016, the Commonwealth’s Medicaid program spent about $318 million on Hepatitis C drugs for about 2,800 people. Massachusetts argued that the pricing of Gilead’s Hepatitis C treatments was unaffordable and allowed the disease to continue to spread, threatening public health. The two sides reached a settlement with Gilead agreeing to pay an unspecified amount through supplemental Medicaid rebates effective August 1, 2016, which will save Massachusetts a significant amount of money. Gilead’s products were placed on the Medicaid preferred drug list as a result of the settlement, with the caveat that Medicaid patients could access other Hepatitis C drugs as well.17
The NASHP also explains the lethal “Pay-For-Delay settlements Strategies employed by brand-name drug manufacturers to extend market exclusivity help fuel high drug costs. “Pay-for-delay” settlements, in which generic manufacturers agree to postpone entering the market in return for compensation, have proven particularly successful. In 2010, the Federal Trade Commission estimated that such settlements cost the nation’s healthcare system $3.5 billion annually from the delayed entry of safe, effective and low-cost generic drugs.18 Three years later, the Supreme Court held that such settlements could violate state and federal antitrust laws,19 a subset of unfair trade practices law prohibiting restraint of trade. The practical effect of the ruling has been to substantially re- duce the number of cash-based, pay-for-delay settlements. Nevertheless, the number of pay-for-delay settlements involving alternate forms of payment, such as a promise by a brand-name manufacturer not to sell an “authorized” generic drug during the limited competition period enjoyed by the first successful generic challenger, remains high.20 State Attorneys General could make a more concerted effort to bring suit against these non-cash-based, pay-for-delay settlements under state antitrust law.
The People tells us that Most Americans believe that the prices of brand name prescription drugs have become way too expensive. “About 7 out of 10 Americans, including two thirds of Republicans, said Medicare, the federal health insurance program for older and disabled Americans, should be able to negotiate lower prices for all prescription drugs.
Another 13 percent support negotiations for just high cost drugs for illnesses such as hepatitis C or cancer.
Contention 2: Healthcare Industry is at risk
Gale Cengage Learning, Expanded Academic ASAP. The U.S. healthcare system faces growing cost pressures due to the unrelenting increase in prescription drug prices. Over the past 20 years, the cost of medications has more than doubled, from 7 percent to about 17 percent of all healthcare spending. Soaring drug prices are both a major contributor to overall healthcare costs and an impediment to providers and health plans looking to appropriately manage total cost of care. If the trend continues, projections show that this problem will get worse. Patients, health plans, government programs, and other payers spent more than $300 billion on prescription
drugs in 2015, and spending is expected to climb to $400 billion in 2020, according to IMS Health.
Gale Cengage
Learning, Expanded Academic ASAP. If one concern unites Americans, it is the high
prices of prescription drugs. One incident in particular tarnished much of the pharma
industry: in 2015 the price of an antiparasitic drug, Daraprim, jumped from $13.50 to
$750 per pill. But large price increases remain stubbornly commonplace (see chart).
According to IQVIA, a health-data firm, the wholesale prices of leading drugs such as
Humira, Enbrel and Lyrica increased by more than 120% between 2012 and 2017. Other
data show that cancer-drug prices rose from about $10,000 to over $100,000 per year in
just over a decade to 2012. Further ahead, a new generation of cures, such as a gene
therapy for hemophilia, may cost more than $1m.
THE
WASHINGTON POST, August 6, 2017, p. C4, NexisUni. Most people who work in
health-care policy agree that rising prescription drug prices pose a serious threat to efforts
to make health care affordable. Prescription drug prices account for 17 percent of the
nation's health-care costs, up from 7 percent in the 1990s. According to data from the
Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, prescription drug spending accounts for nearly
20 percent of total program spending for Medicare, the largest of the governmental
health-care programs
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