The Flawed Third-Party Payer System Drives the Drug Affordability Problem
March 1, 2022
- The problem of drug affordability is caused by the perverse incentives created by the third-party payer system that have
disempowered patients in favor of insurers and other supply-chain intermediaries. - The insurance flaws have created pricing systems that inequitably transfer a disproportionate share of drug costs on to patients. This arrangement inappropriately imposes a drug affordability problem on patients who require expensive medicines.
- The insurance flaws also incent benefit design policies that create additional affordability burdens and unnecessarily increase overall system costs.