Robin Feldman on Drugs, Money, and Secret Handshakes

EconTalk

Library of Economics and Liberty

Ethics, Philosophy, Economics, Books, Science, Business, Courses, Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Interviews, Education, History

4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2019

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Law professor and author Robin Feldman of UC Hastings College of the Law talks about her book Drugs, Money, and Secret Handshakes with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Feldman argues that the legal and regulatory environment for drug companies encourages those companies to seek drugs that extend their monopoly through the patent system often with insufficient benefit for consumers. The prices for those drugs are then protected from new competition. She also argues that the pharmacy benefit management system allows drug companies to exploit consumers. The conversation concludes with a discussion of what can be done to improve the situation.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:08.0	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:12.6	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find
0:17.6	links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:20.5	We'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:24.8	back to 2006.
0:27.0	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:29.6	We'd love to hear from you.
0:33.8	Today is March 19, 2019 at my guest is law professor and author Robin Feldman.
0:39.3	She is the Arthur J. Goldberg Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Institute
0:43.4	for Innovation Law at UC Hastings College of the Law.
0:47.6	She first appeared on econ talk in June of 2017 talking about her book Drug Wars.
0:52.8	Her latest book is drugs, money, and secret handshakes, the unstoppable growth of prescription
0:58.2	drug prices.
0:59.2	Robin, welcome back to econ talk.
1:00.9	Nice to be here.
1:03.1	You call the rise in drug prices unstoppable.
1:05.6	I know that's to get my attention, which it does.
1:09.9	Let's start with the question of how much they've been growing recently.
1:13.6	We see some headline, some stories, some appalling, multiple, increase of x-hundred percent
1:22.8	in some crucial drug and that gets people's attention.
1:26.0	But what's going on overall?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Library of Economics and Liberty, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Library of Economics and Liberty and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.