Research Library

The authors assess U.S. health care system and offer a plan for achieving universal health care. The Lancet: http://bit.ly/2lSaqX6

By Morgan N. Fredell, Hagop M. Kantarjian, Ya-Chen Shih, Vivian Ho and Binata Mukherjee Current U.S. health care spending includes many areas of wasted expenditures. In this study, published in Cancer, the authors explore plans to optimize U.S. health care to provide greater benefits to patients: https://bit.ly/2TmeoDg

Every patient with cancer or another life-threatening disease wants the most effective treatment, but drug prices have become staggering. What determines the escalating prices of cancer drugs?

For both generic and patented cancer drugs, the free-market economy has not worked well. Solutions are needed to maintain reasonable drug prices that allow for corporate profits and are affordable to patients and to the U.S. health care system.

In a genuine effort to protect patients from adverse events, regulatory burdens and research rigidity in clinical trials have increased to a point at which such protection is outweighing the benefits, and actually harming patients who are unable to be involved in clinical trials.

Allowing the producer-dominated market to set drug prices has spiraled the cost of cancer drugs out of control. Drug pricing can be reduced while preserving the profit-making incentive, by linking price to a true measure of quality: preservation and meaningful prolongation of life.

Altering the Medicare policy on injectable drugs is one way to reduce Medicare expenditures. Allowing self-administration will also free up hospital and clinic capacity for other patients.