Jim Greenwood: Insurance also raises drug prices

John Rother’s March 31 Point of View on drug prices presented a narrow, one-sided perspective on prescription drug costs that ignored the value that medicines provide.

The benefits of innovative therapies to patients – especially those who have no other recourse – can be enormous. As just one example, the 10-year survival rate for chronic myeloid leukemia patients has increased from less than 20 percent in 1980 to more than 80 percent as a result of advances in treatment. That increase has generated more than $140 billion in benefits since 2001, of which more than 90 percent is retained by patients and society.

Any serious conversation about controlling health care spending must consider those industries responsible for nearly 90 percent of our nation’s health expenditures – industries in which, unlike biopharmaceuticals, there is no generic competition to drive prices down over time.

It must also look at the mounting out-of-pocket costs and administrative burdens that the insurance industry, which provides funding to Rother’s group, continues to place on insured patients in an effort to limit their access to affordable and effective new treatments. Such discrimination, often against the sickest of patients, makes a mockery of the notion of insurance.

This story was originally published April 20, 2016 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Jim Greenwood: Insurance also raises drug prices."