#125 - Is "Big Pharma" to Blame for Rising Health Care Costs?

Open to Debate

Education, News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2016

⏱️ 54 minutes

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Summary

Motion: Blame Big Pharma for Out-of-Control Health Care Costs. Health care costs in the U.S. are some 18 percent of GNP, nearly double what other rich countries spend. We read of drug therapies that cost $100,000 a year or more, and of drug price increases that are 6 times the rate of inflation, on average, and often much more when mergers reduce competition in the industry. Is this a major driver of excessive health care costs? Or is it a by-product of the huge costs of getting new drugs approved? Has big pharma delivered drugs that reduce the need for costly surgeries, which extend life and improve its quality? Or do they deserve the blame that has been leveled against them? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	So let me be blunt about something and that is that a lot of people and quite probably
0:08.5	a lot of people in this hall would otherwise be dead right now or at least a lot less
0:14.4	healthy but for the work that pharmaceutical companies do.
0:17.6	If you think of how many times you've taken antibiotics, casually saving yourself from
0:23.7	death by infection.
0:25.8	If you think about vaccines in the way they have shielded you against deadly and disabling
0:29.7	disease, if you think about the fact that HIV infection is no longer a death sentence,
0:35.4	there is a lot that we have to be grateful for when it comes to the products that drug companies
0:39.6	invent and then sell to us.
0:42.1	So why do people hate the drug companies so much?
0:45.4	In a word, it's prices.
0:46.6	We have to pay for the drugs and sometimes we have to pay a lot.
0:50.4	On the other hand, drug companies need to make a profit because otherwise perhaps they
0:56.0	just wouldn't bother.
0:58.1	But where's the point when the drug makers charge too much and to what extent are drug
1:02.4	prices themselves driving healthcare costs overall?
1:05.9	Well those questions sound like the making for debate, so let's have it.
1:09.7	Yes or no to this statement blame big pharma for out of control healthcare costs.
1:15.5	A debate from Intelligent Square US, we are here at New York University Skurball Center
1:20.3	in partnership with the Adam Smith Society with four superbly qualified debaters who will
1:25.0	argue for and against the motion blame big pharma for out of control healthcare costs.
1:29.8	We have two debaters arguing for this motion.
	...

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