The Pricelessness of Life vs. Profiting from Illness: A Call for Change to the Pricing Model for Lifesaving Drugs in the United States

Authors

Aubri L. Swank

Abstract

Pharmaceutical drug prices in the United States are at the highest costs yet seen, and it looks like these prices are still continuing to climb. While people in the United States are struggling to pay for necessary medications, the prices of those same medications are drastically lower in other countries.

This Article directly analyzes the issue of pharmaceutical pricing in the United States through two specific lifesaving drugs, insulin and epinephrine. Both drugs are prescriptions required to keep some people alive, and both are related to manufacturing companies with questionable, overwhelming control of the markets. While there has been recent movement in both the federal and state governments to address the issue of price, affordability continues to be in question. However, other countries manage to keep the costs of pharmaceutical drugs far below the prices of those in the United States. The United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany each has a different strategy that involves government intervention to keep prices down, using models that focus, respectively, on product price control, reference pricing, and profit control. By implementing aspects of each of these other countries' pricing models, particularly a system for reference pricing and a pharmaceutical review board, the United States can hope to make it affordable to live.

First Page

261

Recommended Citation

Aubri L. Swank, The Pricelessness of Life vs. Profiting from Illness: A Call for Change to the Pricing Model for Lifesaving Drugs in the United States, 61 Duq. L. Rev. 261 (2023).
Available at: https://dsc.duq.edu/dlr/vol61/iss2/6