Defining the Problem

There is a lack of control on pharmaceutical companies who set prices on many drugs such as oncology medications. They are expensive and there are no negotiations on the prices of these prescribed medications.

Patients suffer from prices in the market for pharmaceutical drugs, particularly in the case of terminal illness, where the medication is necessary to fight for longevity of life. Doctors are then put in complicated situations because the patient may not be able to afford the drug that they are suggesting, and in some occasions, patients are then required to make a decision of whether or not they are going to go with the more or less expensive drug. This also affects insurance companies and charges them more, which in term means higher monthly payments for their clients—the patients.

This failure of inaction and oversight is from the lack of negotiations on medicine price tags. There is no check in the United States on the price tag pharmaceutical companies list for drugs that are necessary for survival, particularly for illnesses like cancer. The FDA has no negotiating power on prices; they simply verify the scientific data.

Recently in September 2015, Turing Pharmaceuticals was caught in a controversy that they had increased the cost of Antiretroviral pills (AIDS drug) by more than 5000 percent overnight. After much public scrutiny and attention from presidential candidates, the CEO stated that they would mull over the decision to reduce prices, but failed to mention how. In December of last year, Pfizer, one of the largest multinational, pharmaceutical corporations around, set the price for a new breast cancer drug at $9850 per month. The badly documented journey of how Pfizer reached its price tag for this drug has US Congress rallying for its citizens. A Senate committee is actually having a hearing on drug prices that started in December 2015 and will restart when Congress reconvenes for the New Year.

On one side of this controversy, there are the doctors prescribing the drugs and the patients who are paying for them. On the other side, there are the for-profit pharmaceutical companies, whose goal is to make money.

The particular problem is mainly confined to the United States, because we lack a universal health care system. Universal patent protection laws imply that the prices of drugs should be—for the most part—the same globally. Instead they are twenty to forty percent cheaper in areas like Europe and Eastern Asia. This is due to the plethora of rigid, complex laws in countries with a universal health care system. Loopholes in American healthcare laws allow pharmaceutical companies to gain the most profit from their American customers—or their proper name, patients.

This problem has been allowed to develop due to the astronomical burden placed on insurance companies and the lack of negotiation of drug prices on an individual basis. No authoritative body has the power or jurisdiction to negotiate prices on pharmaceutical drugs. The lack of a national, universal healthcare plan or system primarily contributes to the exploitation of patients by for-profit, pharmaceutical companies.

Doctors and patients often have to reconsider treatment plans because of the astronomical prices on pharmaceutical drugs; expensive medical care is a leading cause of bankruptcy in America. Exploitation and people having to compromise on their decision for the level of care they receive is on the line. Pharmaceutical companies are, in the case of medication for terminal illness, putting a price on human life. The markups on price tags allow pharmaceutical firms to cover the prices of expensive research and the research for their failed, unmarketable drugs, allowing them profit companies. The problem originates from the fact that the United States doesn’t have a regulating body for the negotiations of individual drugs before they enter the market.