Professors Anne Case and Angus Deaton say our current health system takes from the poor and working class to generate wealth for the already wealthy.
In March, Congress passed a coronavirus bill including $3.1 billion to develop and produce drugs and vaccines. The bipartisan consensus was unusual. Less unusual was the successful lobbying by pharmaceutical companies to weaken or kill provisions that addressed affordability — measures that could be used to control prices or invalidate patents for any new drugs.
The notion of price control is anathema to health care companies. It threatens their basic business model, in which the government grants them approvals and patents, pays whatever they ask, and works hand in hand with them as they deliver the worst health outcomes at the highest costs in the rich world.
The American health care industry is not good at promoting health, but it excels at taking money from all of us for its benefit. It is an engine of inequality.