The First Anti-Drug Price Gouging Law Essay - 904 Words

The first anti-drug price gouging law went into effect in Maryland on October 1, has already survived its first legal challenge, and may yet prove to be a cut-and-paste model for a nation generally pissed that drug makers are hiking the prices of medicines they need to live. â€Å"The basic fact is there are folks all over Maryland and across the country that are sick and they cannot access these life saving medicines because of the cost,† says Matthew Celentano, deputy director for policy and communications for the Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative. Drug makers in the United States have largely abandoned treating the sick according to the Hippocratic Oath for a guiding philosophy of fuck you, pay me. The most hotly spotlighted cases are†¦show more content†¦Still, some counter that â€Å"unconscionable† is too vague to be meaningful—imagine if speed limits were as vaguely defined, argues the general counsel for a group of generic drug makers. But putting a clear price tag on what is too much, like 65 mph on the highway, might serve as an invitation to walk right up to the line of what is legal and what is unconscionable, and back it off just a little bit. â€Å"Maryland legislators tried hard here to specify with sufficient precision what kinds of price increases would be justifiable and which wouldn’t be,† says Rachel E. Sachs, an associate professor at the Washington University School of Law. â€Å"If legislators had been as specific as the generic industry wants them to be—such as by stating a specific percentage beyond which price increases would be investigated—the industry could then take price increases up to that point with impunity.† Other opponents charge that the high prices of drugs aren’t examples of price gouging at all, but necessary increases for drug makers to recoup costs of research and development. Yet a Health Affairs study shows otherwise: enough money is made by US drug companies that they could cover research and development and still save â€Å"US patients, businesses, and taxpayers approximately $40 billion† per year, if they operated like the rest of the world. In fact, we are likely underestimating how badly we are being price gouged by some drug makers—after all, a