U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
July, 2002
“This report demonstrates the potentially serious consequences to medical innovation and overall health posed by attempts to contain drug expenditures by implementing government controls that are inevitably arbitrary and out of touch with the diversity of patient needs and circumstances. If applied broadly in the United States, government-controlled restrictions on the coverage of new drugs could put the future of medical innovation at risk and may retard advances in treatment and in the development and introduction of new products. Moreover, government controls may reduce or delay access to specific drugs for seniors. Even when a drug is available, government controls often increase the likelihood that older, lower cost products will be prescribed rather than newer, more innovative products, which may have fewer side effects or other features that improve patient compliance and hence, the effectiveness of medical treatment.
“In contrast to many other countries, the U.S. market is relatively free of government-controlled programs to contain medical costs. Although participation in many federal and state buying programs may require certain types of controls-such as rebates and coverage limits-these programs represent only a small fraction of the market.
“To ensure continued progress in the fight to treat and prevent diseases, especially the chronic illnesses of older age for which we may be on the verge of unprecedented breakthroughs, the American health care system should not resort to government controlled drug coverage decisions. Other steps can and should be taken to reduce the costs of drugs, such as investing in biomedical research on less costly and more effective treatments, protecting the intellectual property rights of American companies worldwide, improving the efficiency of the regulatory process for new treatments, and increasing the availability and effectiveness of competitive approaches to limit the cost of new treatments. These steps will help keep drugs available and affordable without reducing access to valuable new treatments and discouraging innovation just at the time when the potential for innovation is greatest.”
Comment: This report, cloaked as “study” on drug innovation and coverage, is merely a blatantly dishonest political statement of the Bush administration’s policy position on pharmaceutical firms. Just at a time when access to affordable prescription drugs has become a critical problem for many of those with the greatest needs, the Bush administration blows these people away and beds down with the industry that is ripping off the American public. Have they no shame?
(Please accept my apologies for injecting politics into a policy issue. Maybe someone else reading this has a more effective approach to establishing the principle that everyone should have access to essential medications.)