Was Big Pharma behind the new restrictions on HSAs and FSAs? What about the AMA?
Doctors are influenced by drug companies and that’s a good thing. Sally Satel review of White Coat, Black Hat.
What’s the best place for a medical home? Your own home.
7 thoughts on “Is Big Pharma to Blame for the Restrictions to HSAs?”
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I’ve always liked Sally Satel. Everything she writes is very reasonable.
You have two competing views of drug comapanies here. The first one paints them as villains. The second tries to defend them against a book that sees tham as villains.
The drug companies may do some social good. But that doesn’t prevent them from acting villainously.
Check this out: http://www.propublica.org/article/lawsuits-say-pharma-illegally-paid-doctors-to-push-their-drugs
I am confused? Doctors being paid by Big Pharma to push certain drugs to their patients is a good thing?
Do we have a brand new drug cartel where white coats deliver drugs to potential addicts on behalf of a corporate sponsor?
Whoah! Who controls the prescribing of prescription drugs? Answer: The federal government through the 1951 Durham-Humphrey Amendndment to the Food, Drug, & Cosmetics Act. This gave the Food & Drug Administration the power over what drugs are OTC versus Rx. Drugmakers have zero choice over how they get their medicines to patients. The wining and dining of physicians is more properly understood as rent-seeking by a professional class exploiting its government-granted monopoly, not Big Pharma’s bad-faith salesmanship.
John Graham has a point. If drug makers had to market their drugs directly to patients by competing on price, prices would be lower. I suspect patients would also put more thought in to therapy decisions. Patients often rely on their doctor to make decisions, while the doctor may rely on the drug rep’s information about the drug.