The $1,000 pill

By Tom Emerick - Originally posted on Cracking Health Costs

The WSJ posted a good article on specialty drugs written by Karen Ignagni. (Subscription required.)

One quote stuck out: “A recent study by CVS Caremark…predicted that the price of new hepatitis C treatments like Sovaldi could increase premiums for everyone with private insurance by as much as $300 annually. And that’s to treat one disease. Many more similarly expensive treatments are coming.” (Emphasis mine.)

With this kind of pricing for new drugs we are left with four choices:

1. Ration the use of such drugs,
2. Implement price controls on specialty drugs,
3. Face a long-term recession induced by health care prices, and/or
4. Increase the number of uninsured by pricing people out of the market for health insurance.

Alas. I hope someone can show me I’m wrong.