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The Right Prescription
Preventive Care, Obamacare Style
Preventing cancer patients from getting the new treatments they need.
While President Obama rests up at Martha’s Vineyard, people whose lives should be saved by new and existing cancer drugs are driving from hospital to hospital in search of medicines in short supply thanks in part to Obamacare’s implementation.
Over the past two years shortages have developed for over 180 drugs, including cancer treatments. The shortfall is the result of stricter FDA regulation, government price controls on already discounted but complex drugs, and policies that discourage the use of new medications. Companies, facing lower prices, tighter regulation and increasing government control over what drugs will be used and when, are exiting the U.S. market and investing in product development in China and India where, sadly, it is easier and cheaper to produce next-generation medicines.
Stockpiling will only add to people’s suffering by replacing market reforms with government micromanagement. Government planners require months, if not years, to produce regulations, bids and supply estimates that are usually overgenerous to compensate for paltry prices. Government bungling was behind the failure of the smallpox and H1N1 vaccine program and responsible for billions of dollars in flu vaccines and antibiotics being dumped. The same forces pushing stockpiling also believe commercializing medical discoveries is evil. It’s part of a larger effort to nationalize the development of medicines that under Obamacare is become institutionalized.
Indeed, the drug shortage is a product of a more troubling trend. At a time when medical research could yield breakthroughs in the treatment of obesity, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and stroke, among others, innovation has all but dried up. Most of the medicines being used today were developed 30 years ago. Most of them have generic competition. They have contributed greatly to increased wellbeing but as the return on generic drugs fall, price controls and regulation have created shortages.
Obamacare is making the commercialization of newer drugs and devices more difficult.
Though new and faster methods to determine a technology’s safety and effectiveness exist, Obama’s FDA still demands evidence collected with science and statistical methods developed in the 19th century. To be sure, in the last two years new medicines for AIDS, cancer, lupus and hepatitis have been developed. Yet, these products should have been available sooner if not for FDA nitpicking.
And now that they are finally approved, patients are finding it next to impossible to access several new drugs and genetic tests that would transform the quality of life and extend survival for such illnesses as lupus, prostate cancer, and organ transplantation.
Provenge, the first cancer vaccine, stalled at the FDA for years. Once approved, it faced 18 months of additional delay while the Obama administration figured out whether to pay for it. The gauntlet cancer patients face with Provenge is being extended to everyone waiting for a medical breakthrough under Obamacare. Before a medical innovation can be used or paid for, the government will now demand additional research demonstrating that a new product will be more effective and cheaper than existing technologies. Since most new products come from small start-ups with limited cash, such a requirement means life-saving innovations will not be available at all.
Similar regulations have been used to delay and deny access to cancer drugs in England, Canada and Australia. Drugs such as Avastin, Revlimid and Herceptin are barely used in Britain’s cancer wards because government decided they were not valuable. The people who could not use them are dead. Those — mostly in America — that did are alive.
But now this de facto rationing is coming to America. Before the cancer drug shortage there was the decision that women under 50 should not get mammograms. Both Provenge and Benlysta, new treatments for prostate cancer and lupus respectively, are hard to come by because of uncertainty about reimbursement by health plans and government.
The death and suffering flowing from such delays are the result of policies promoted by those who want to use the FDA and increased government control over medicine to slash access to new technologies. In their mind, rationing of cancer drugs frees up money to expand the welfare state. The shortage of old drugs is simply one side effect of this malevolent strategy.
It would be simpler to claw back regulations and let markets work. But stockpiling is part of a larger effort to centralize the development and use of medical services. The administration has gone silent on the wonders of Obamacare even as it issues regulations and hires bureaucrats to replace free choice with government edict. But it will emerge as a campaign and social issue. In America no one should go without medicine because they can’t afford it. And this shouldn’t be a nation where people are denied treatments because their government makes medicine impossible to produce or obtain.
About the Author
Robert M. Goldberg is vice president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and founder of Hands Off My H ealth, a grass roots health care empowerment network. His is new book, Tabloid Medicine: How the Internet is Being Used To Hijack Medical Science For Fear and Profit, was published last month by Kaplan.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (22) | Leave a comment
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Timothy L. Pennell| 8.24.11 @ 7:11AM
Oh.
When you said this was gonna be about "Preventive Care, Obama Style", I thought you were talking about ABORTION.
Abortion is the obvious way to roll back Health Costs, if you think like a Progressive. If you think like a Marxist.
What did Marx say? That his Ideology would be so much easier to implement, if 300 Million, or so, people, could be ELIMINATED?
And, wasn't it Robert Frost, the esteemed Progressive/Poet, who spoke of coming up with some kind of GAS to Thin out the herd, so to speak, of UNDESIRABLES?
That way, they would never get sick. Never be a burden on the rest of us. Never take up a Hospital bed, that could be put to better use, for a Productive member of The State. Never be a DRAIN on the Health Care System. Thus, bringing down the Costs.
See?
Preventive Care, in a Josef Mengele/Mao/Pol Pot
John Holdren/Ezekiel Emanuel kind of way.
Pecos Pete| 8.24.11 @ 9:37AM
TLP: Don't forget that older people are extremely expensive to maintain with their need for food and medical care.
squalis| 8.24.11 @ 7:34AM
Although a minority, I remain astonished at the number of my physician colleagues who continue to support this fool. What would not surprise me would be to discover that these are the AMA members.
David W| 8.24.11 @ 9:14AM
If you need specific, hard-to-find or unavailable medicine all you need to do is become a friend of some one in Government. They'll pull the strings to get you what you need (I heard that a certain ex-speaker of the house did that for one of her buddies). Of course, most people, especially conservatives need not apply.
Notary Sojac| 8.24.11 @ 10:49AM
A simple change will resolve this problem. The reason the FDA is reluctant to approve new drugs is that every FDA approved drug must be covered under Medicare and (some) Medicaid programs.
That requirement needs to go away, and drug development needs to be financed based upon market share/income from private paying patients, rather than revenue extracted from taxpayers.
Mr. Goldberg, I'll be delighted to keep my "hands off your health" if you keep your hands out of my wallet. OK?
Menders| 8.27.11 @ 1:53AM
Agreed. Provenge is nothing but a boondongle for scientists and venture capitalists. It keeps you alive if you have incurable prostate cancer when nothing else will, but at a cost of $90,000 per person (for one of the most common forms of cancer in men) and only for an average of three extra months. It's quite simple: either it gets cheaper (which is hard to see happening) or it doesn't get used: it's simply not affordable to give all the 34,000 people who die of prostate cancer every year a drug that costs $90,000 on Medicare.
Jack London| 8.24.11 @ 11:04AM
This article is up to the usual AmSpec standard - nonsense in other words. There are so any factual errors that the writer really ought to hang his head in shame.
Curtis Rasmussen| 8.24.11 @ 3:14PM
Such as?
George S| 8.24.11 @ 6:51PM
And when proponents of ObamaCare say we spend way too much money on medical care, what did you expect the Final Solution to be? Cheaper drugs?
Ted Peters| 8.24.11 @ 11:32AM
It is time to openly acknowledge that government regulations are created, promulgated and enforced by personalities who suffer from obsessive/compulsive syndromes., ie., they are control freaks. Even if our air and water were to become as pristine as they were before human beings evolved, these people would continue to impose more and more of their silly rules on the rest of us, just because they are psychologically impaired.
cavan| 8.24.11 @ 12:15PM
One trillion dollars of health care costs can be directly attributed to patients who will not do what their doctors tell them to do i.e., lose `weight, stop smoking , take their medication etc. Medical conditions that could be controlled ( diabetes, high blood pressure,cholesterol,) become chronic life-threatening problems and very costly to treat.
sotto voce| 8.24.11 @ 1:26PM
It seems to me that Obamacare will force drug manufacturers into a Catch-22. Forcing more research on drug manufacturers by mandate ensures the price of new drugs will never be cheaper than existing treatments and will squelch the development of new treatments. Under those conditions, why would America even try to be a country of advanced medical research?
Dick Nome| 8.24.11 @ 2:19PM
Obamacare is the one accomplishment by the collective that was truly shovel-ready..... Especially for Seniors and the sick.
Fly| 8.24.11 @ 2:26PM
Of course, most people, especially conservatives need not apply.
http://www.wholesalesunglassesbrands.com
Wayne | 8.24.11 @ 6:43PM
I still haven't figured out why we need an FDA. Lets have a free market.
Nite| 8.24.11 @ 10:40PM
People with cancer can not hardly receive the medication they need now. Imagine what it will be like in 2 years with the monstrosity of Obamacare is fully implemented. Many people will die because of the FDA and Obamacare. A lot of physicians will retire rather than allow Obama and his bureaucrats telling them how to treat their patients. A large number people will simply not become a physician or other health professional. A good case in point is the Independent Medicare Payment Board that reports directly to Obama. Dr. Berwick, who is in charge, is a recess appointment. Obama could not get him confirmed in a Democrat controlled Senate. The IMPB is 15 unelected unconfirmed so called experts appointed by Obama and they will have control of treatment and care for Medicare and Medicaid patients. They will NOT report Congress. These 15 people love the British Healthcare System, in fact rationing is why they were appointed. Do you want these idiots in charge of your care or your families? I sure don't, but they will unless Obama and his minions are tossed out of office.
Wayne | 8.25.11 @ 12:03AM
I don't, but I don't want the FDA doing it either.
POST American| 8.25.11 @ 8:31AM
----------------BOTTOMLESS LINE------------------
Whenever we're ready to spit out those
Rock--F--L---O 'benny violent' programs
(--and bribes?) ---and are ready to come to
grips with the awesomely hideous EUGENICS
agenda ----and such things as cancer causing,
organ destroying, inter-generational sterilizing
GMO foods -----GIVE US A CALL.
supra | 10.18.11 @ 1:41AM
Very happy to see your article, I very much to like and agree with your point of view.
HokenTaka| 12.9.11 @ 2:33PM
It is absolutely amazing how you right- wing fanatics can be so blinded by your outright hatred of Obama that you can actually dilute yourselves into thinking that everything he does is wrong and harmful to the country Dating Online