January 02, 2011
It seems not from this article on how drug companies are now giving out coupons to cover part of the patients’ co-payment for expensive brand drugs. The logic is simple: the patent monopoly allows the company to sell the drug for a price that could be several hundred times its cost of production. This gives it an enormous incentive to try to get patients to use their drug and for doctors to prescribe it. This means that it can be very profitable to give out coupons that get around the co-payment which insurers charge as a disincentive to use expensive drugs.
This is the sort of gaming that economic theory predicts would result from government intervention in the market, like a patent monopoly. If this sort of behavior occurred in response to a government intervention intended to help low and moderate income people, like for example rent controls, the coverage would likely include comments from economists ridiculing such ill-advised interventions in the market. However, this piece includes no discussion whatsoever of the fact that the resources wasted in this gaming, and the possible negative health outcomes from people using less than optimal drugs, are entirely the result of patent monopolies. None of this would be occurring if drug research was financed through other mechanisms and drugs sold at their free market price, which would typically be less than $10 per prescription.
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