We at Healthcare Triage couldn’t be more excited about this month. We’re doing a whole month on orphan drugs, with the help of Nick Bagley. He wrote a lot about them, and we begged him to let us adapt his work into a series. This is the Introduction. Over the next few weeks, there will be three more. Enjoy!
In this year’s presidential campaign, health care has taken a back seat. But one issue appears to be breaking through: the rising cost of prescription drugs.
The blockbuster drugs to treat hepatitis C as well as dramatic price increases on older drugs, most recently the EpiPen allergy treatment, have combined to put the issue back on the front burner.
Democrat Hillary Clinton just issued a lengthy proposal to address what her campaign calls “unjustified price hikes for long-available drugs.” That’s in addition to a broader proposal to address high drug prices the campaign put out last fall.
Republican Donald Trump, meanwhile, has said little about health care since announcing his candidacy in 2015, but he has several times called for a change in law to allowMedicare to negotiate drug prices for the population it serves.
Here are five reasons why this issue is back — and why it is so difficult to solve.
Why an obscure Supreme Court case is a big deal for prescription drugs
“Consumers and the health system as a whole benefit from a more competitive prescription drug market,” Marilyn Tavenner, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, said in a statement. “Protecting monopoly-like pricing schemes threaten[s] consumers’ access to more affordable prescription medications.”
HENRY KOTULA 