Paying for Patented Drugs is Hard to Justify: An Argument about Time Discounting and Medical Need
Journal of Applied Philosophy 29 (3):186-199 (2012)
| Abstract | Drugs are much more expensive whilst they are subject to patent protection than once patents expire: patented drugs make up only 20% of NHS drugs prescriptions, but consume 80% of the total NHS drugs bill. This article argues that, given the relatively uncontroversial assumption that we should save the greater number in cases where all are equally deserving and we cannot save both groups, it is more difficult than is usually thought to justify why publicly funded healthcare systems should pay for patented treatments. The claim to medical treatment of those who will be sick with a given condition once the patent runs out is just as strong as those who are sick with it now, but we will be able to treat more people with the same unit of resource in the future. Hence, when resource constraints entail that both cannot be funded, publicly funded healthcare systems ought to wait until patents expire before approving drugs for general use in the publicly funded system | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,709 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesSigrid Sterckx (2005). Can Drug Patents Be Morally Justified? Science and Engineering Ethics 11 (1).
Pilar N. Ossorio (2002). Not Taking, Just Borrowing: Government Use of Patented Drugs. American Journal of Bioethics 2 (3):51-52.
Susan C. Han & Suzette M. Evans (2005). Sex and Drugs: Do Women Differ From Men in Their Subjective Response to Drugs of Abuse? In Mitch Earleywine (ed.), Mind-Altering Drugs. Oxford University Press.
P. Susan Stephenson & Gillian A. Walker (1980). Psychotropic Drugs and Women. Bioethics Quarterly 2 (1):20-38.
Ralph Metzner (2005). Psychedelic, Psychoactive, and Addictive Drugs and States of Consciousness. In Mitch Earleywine (ed.), Mind-Altering Drugs: The Science of Subjective Experience. Oxford University Press.
Thomas Søbirk Petersen (2010). Good Athlete - Bad Athlete? On the 'Role-Model Argument' for Banning Performance-Enhancing Drugs. Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 4 (3):332-340.
Michael Gorman (2005). Intellectual Property Rights, Moral Imagination, and Access to Life-Enhancing Drugs. Business Ethics Quarterly 15 (4):595-613.
David Shaw (2008). Crocodile Tiers. Journal of Medical Ethics 34 (8):575.
Bengt Brülde (2007). Can Succesful Mood Enhancement Make Us Less Happy? Philosophica 79:39-56.
Jonny Anomaly (2013). Collective Action and Individual Choice. Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (4).
Stephen T. Higgins & Stacey C. Sigmon (2000). Implications of Behavioral Momentum for Understanding the Behavioral Pharmacology of Abused Drugs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23 (1):101-101.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2012-07-26Total downloads9 ( #114,230 of 550,854 )Recent downloads (6 months)4 ( #19,337 of 550,854 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
