Newton’s third law clearly does not apply to every entity, especially drug prices. Over the past few years, there has been a steady increase in drug prices. Some drastic price hikes have gotten quite a bit of media coverage, resulting in scandals such as the infamous Martin Shkreli case.
During his campaign trail, Trump vowed to take action against outrageous drug prices, but this turned out to be another empty promise. There have been no concrete measures taken so far by the Trump administration to remedy the situation. Congress itself has been slow to act, and this seeming disinterest in addressing drug prices does not help in motivating other parties involved, namely pharmaceutical companies, to act either. The one piece of legislature that seemingly all parties have agreed upon, the CREATE Act, remains yet to be passed by Congress. The CREATE Act would “promote drug price competition by making it easier for medicines whose patents have expired to be sold as less expensive generic versions.” Carefully crafted pieces of legislation are only passed after agreement from all parties with a vested interest in drug prices, including the AMA, AHIP, and AHA. Since each party has different priorities, coming to a consensus on drafting and passing legislation is extremely difficult.
Congress may need to take the first step if legislation is to be passed.
Additionally, a combination of conflicting interests and ineffective lobbying have impeded action towards lowering drug prices. Drug makers try to villainize pharmacy benefit managers to shift blame away from them. “The Washington Post earlier this year called pharma’s tactics against those players an effort to “start an industry war.””
One of the main reasons for inaction is an unfortunate truth: both healthcare industry groups and pharmaceutical companies are profiting from the current system, so there is little incentive for them to change. Pharmaceutical companies benefit from higher list prices by being able to collect higher rebates for each drug, and physicians earn more under Medicare for prescribing more expensive drugs; thus, there is a chain of financial incentives to maintain the status quo.
“The piecemeal approach — getting behind policies like CREATES and then turning to other, smaller issues — may be the best way to approach the issue, they [trade association officials] argued.”
Feature Image Source: Pills Prescription Bottle by nosheep
