Government as a Market Player to Improve Consumer Access to Lifesaving Drugs for a Healthy Budget and Healthy Care

Abstract

Monopolistic pricing by pharmaceutical patentees and a lack of price controls over lifesaving drugs is one of the major reasons that health care is expensive in the United States. With a goal of improving consumer access to lifesaving drugs, this Dissertation characterizes lifesaving drugs as essential commodities for human survival and highlights how the government could act as a market-player to lower drug prices. This Dissertation discusses the federal government’s exclusive authority over the pharmaceutical industry and patentees to bring price transparency and promote fair pricing standards. It also argues for removal of the “noninterference clause” from the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 by incorporating the contract principles of undue influence and unconscionability and recognizing the trustee and beneficiary relationship between the Board of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds and the people insured by Medicare. Finally, the Dissertation accentuates the importance of appreciating and balancing the need for cheaper pharmaceutical products against patentees’ intellectual property rights so that the patentees can earn a reasonable return on their investments. The Dissertation proposes subjecting government imposed patent regulations and price controls on the pharmaceutical patentees and the pharmaceutical companies to a balancing test that promotes new drug inventions at affordable prices.