June 23, 2015
The NYT had a piece on efforts to encourage doctors to assess the price and relative effectiveness of drugs when writing prescriptions for cancer patients. It notes that drug companies charge $10,000-$30,000 a month for many of the new cancer drugs. It then comments on the suggestion that doctors should take these costs into account in deciding treatment:
“Evaluating the latter cost would put doctors in the role of being stewards of societal resources. That is somewhat of a controversial role for doctors, since it might conflict with their duty to the patient in front of them.”
It is important to note that doctors are not exactly in the role of deciding whether resources would be allocated to developing these cancer drugs, since that decision would have already been made. The resources devoted to developing the drugs have already been used at the point where doctors are deciding whether to prescribe them. The doctors’ decision only determines how much drug companies will profit as a result of committing these resources.
This is an important distinction. Obviously profits will affect the drug companies decisions on future research, but at the point where the drug exists, it costs society very little to make it available to every patient who would benefit. It is only due to patent monopolies that we get such a sharp divergence between the price facing the patient or insurer and the cost to society.
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