TY - JOUR
T1 - Fairness in drug prices
T2 - do economists think differently from the public?
AU - Trujillo, Antonio J.
AU - Karmarkar, Taruja
AU - Alexander, Caleb
AU - Padula, William
AU - Greene, Jeremy
AU - Anderson, Gerard
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. The funding sources had no role in the design and conduct of the study, analysis or interpretation of the data; and preparation or final approval of the manuscript prior to publication. 1 Value-based pricing refers to the notion that prices would reflect the benefit a particular drug provides to patients in terms better quality of life or extension of longer life. 2 It is important to clarify that Turing Pharmaceuticals did make the claim that the money would be used for future research (see http://fortune.com/2015/09/21/turing-pharmaceuticals-drug-prices-daraprim/ ). Though the public doubt that this was a truthful claim. 3 Some economists may argue that part of research and development are not sunk cost as some of these resources would be used to plan future research and development.
Publisher Copyright:
© Cambridge University Press 2018.
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - Using dual-entitlement theory as the guide, we conducted a survey of economists from the National Bureau of Economic Research asking them a series of questions about the fairness of drug prices in the United States. Public opinion surveys have repeatedly shown that the public perceives drug prices to be unfair, but economists trained in laws of supply and demand may have different perceptions. Three hundred and ten senior economists responded to our survey. Forty-five percent agreed that drug prices were unfair when people, specifically low-income individuals, could not afford their prescription medications. Sixty-five percent oppose a dollar threshold, or upper limit, on drug prices. The economists recommend the most promising policy change would be to provide the government additional negotiating power and price controls would moderately impact investment in pharmaceutical research and development.
AB - Using dual-entitlement theory as the guide, we conducted a survey of economists from the National Bureau of Economic Research asking them a series of questions about the fairness of drug prices in the United States. Public opinion surveys have repeatedly shown that the public perceives drug prices to be unfair, but economists trained in laws of supply and demand may have different perceptions. Three hundred and ten senior economists responded to our survey. Forty-five percent agreed that drug prices were unfair when people, specifically low-income individuals, could not afford their prescription medications. Sixty-five percent oppose a dollar threshold, or upper limit, on drug prices. The economists recommend the most promising policy change would be to provide the government additional negotiating power and price controls would moderately impact investment in pharmaceutical research and development.
KW - drug prices
KW - dual-entitlement
KW - fairness
KW - opinion survey
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85057748218&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85057748218&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S1744133118000427
DO - 10.1017/S1744133118000427
M3 - Article
C2 - 30509337
AN - SCOPUS:85057748218
SN - 1744-1331
VL - 15
SP - 18
EP - 29
JO - Health Economics, Policy and Law
JF - Health Economics, Policy and Law
IS - 1
ER -