Skyrocketing Drug Prices: A Bitter Pill to Swallow

While new discoveries in medicine have fueled the drug development industry, our ability to control costs and broaden access to drugs has decreased. What is the role of academic medical centers to control such costs? How can our basic science knowledge and impact on healthcare policy contribute to lowering drug costs? Moderated by Carolyn Johnson, The Washington Post reporter who covers the intersection between business and health. Panelists: Jeremy Greene, M.A., M.D., Ph.D. and Redonda Miller, M.B.A., M.D. #JHMBootCamp

[ianfitchett]

This is what happens when you treat healthcare like a free market. It's ok to price a car at $100, 000 and price many people out, you don't have a right a nice car or even any car. You don't need a car.

It's another thing entirely to price a medicine at $100, 000/year (11 of 12 cancer medications approved by the FDA in 2012 were priced at or above $100, 000 a year) and price people out of being able to afford what they need to live.

If the US government doesn't treat healthcare as a right, the prices will continue to escalate as inequality grows and more and more people will be priced out, and more and more people (disproportionately young people and low income families according to statistics) are going to start dying to diseases we can treat. Life expectancy will continue to decrease, this has the potential to cause social catastrophy as these things historically generate violent crime and destructive affects to society.

I think it's ridiculous that these people are saying the only issue is transparency. The issue is that price gouging healthcare is a human rights violation and no one is going anything about it. These problems don't affect other Western capitalist countries.

[CorvusCorax.]

Remind me...didn't Orange Mussolini promise to lower drug prices to the point of head spinning?