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The High Price of Living: The History and Future of Equitable Access to Medications

Between 2009 and 2018, average drug prices more than doubled for many Medicare patients, forcing millions of patients to skip doses or fail to fill prescriptions.  Unlike countries like Canada, whose Patented Medicine Prices Review Board applies a formula to ensure that its drug prices stay low, the US system of drug distribution and  pricing is complicated, opaque, and largely free of governmental price constraints.

Pharmaceutical corporations charge essentially what the market will bear. Once patents expire on a brand-name medication, a lower-cost generic version —similar but bearing a lower price tag— may become available. Generics are often touted as the answer to high prices, providing essential medications within the reach of most.

However, generics have not yielded the hoped-for lower costs, even for important essential medications like insulin and albuterol, medications that people with common chronic conditions depend upon to live. For instance, more than 8 million Americans require insulin to survive, but although it has been on the market for more than a century, there is no generic version, leaving one in four patients unable to afford their medicine.

In response, in 2019, Maryland passed legislation to prevent price-gouging on essential medicines, like insulin. Other states followed suits. Still, legal challenges and cost concerns leave too many patients saddled with high medication costs. Generics are only part of the issue. Complicated the picture are the rise of more complex, expensive classes of drugs.

Prescription drugs in the U.S. cost triple the price of other developed countries. How did this happen? And what is the solution? How can we best move forward to ensure medical access to all? To explain the history and discuss today’s ethical, financial and legal issues, the New York Academy of Medicine is convening an expert panel on Thursday, December 12: The High Price of Living: The History and Future of Equitable Access to Medicine.











When: Thu., Dec. 12, 2024 at 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Where: The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Ave.
212-822-7200
Price: Free
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Between 2009 and 2018, average drug prices more than doubled for many Medicare patients, forcing millions of patients to skip doses or fail to fill prescriptions.  Unlike countries like Canada, whose Patented Medicine Prices Review Board applies a formula to ensure that its drug prices stay low, the US system of drug distribution and  pricing is complicated, opaque, and largely free of governmental price constraints.

Pharmaceutical corporations charge essentially what the market will bear. Once patents expire on a brand-name medication, a lower-cost generic version —similar but bearing a lower price tag— may become available. Generics are often touted as the answer to high prices, providing essential medications within the reach of most.

However, generics have not yielded the hoped-for lower costs, even for important essential medications like insulin and albuterol, medications that people with common chronic conditions depend upon to live. For instance, more than 8 million Americans require insulin to survive, but although it has been on the market for more than a century, there is no generic version, leaving one in four patients unable to afford their medicine.

In response, in 2019, Maryland passed legislation to prevent price-gouging on essential medicines, like insulin. Other states followed suits. Still, legal challenges and cost concerns leave too many patients saddled with high medication costs. Generics are only part of the issue. Complicated the picture are the rise of more complex, expensive classes of drugs.

Prescription drugs in the U.S. cost triple the price of other developed countries. How did this happen? And what is the solution? How can we best move forward to ensure medical access to all? To explain the history and discuss today’s ethical, financial and legal issues, the New York Academy of Medicine is convening an expert panel on Thursday, December 12: The High Price of Living: The History and Future of Equitable Access to Medicine.

Buy tickets/get more info now