Proposed Healthcare Reforms Will Not Help the Latinx Community
By Rosa Mendoza
Joe Biden is officially the Democratic presidential nominee, all thanks to his moderate reputation.
It is now perplexing that Biden is embracing many of his defeated opponents' ideas, which Democrat base voters rejected just a few months ago. He established a "unity" task force populated by the most vocal supporters of Bernie Sanders. This advisory group recently recommended two far-left measures that could inadvertently disrupt many working-class Americans' access to health care.
The first measure could weaken patent protections, which prevent generic drug manufacturers from copying and selling brand-name medicines developed by rival companies. Inventing a single new treatment costs around $2.6 billion, according to a 2014 Tufts University study. In 2019 alone, the world's ten largest pharmaceutical companies spent $82 billion on research and development.
If American entrepreneurship, ingenuity and innovation are to stay at the forefront of the global economy, there must be strong patent and IP protections in place.
Before firms invest billions of dollars into developing new medications -- the vast majority of which fail in clinical trials -- they need assurances that rivals will not be able to reverse-engineer their formulas and produce copycat versions. Otherwise, manufacturers would have little incentive to spend enormous sums on research.
Weakening patent protections would result in less medical research and development spending, and ultimately fewer new drugs for patients. Without patent protections, researchers may not have the right environment to explore new areas of medical innovation and unearth the findings that will lead to much needed treatments and cures.
As an advocate for the Latinx community, ALLvanza understands the pressing need for new and better medicines. Latinx Americans are more likely to suffer from hypertension, obesity, and diabetes than white Americans. The Latinx community relies on prescriptions to manage their conditions. If the pipeline of new therapies dries up, the consequences would be devastating.
The second proposal from the Biden-Sanders task force could similarly discourage innovation by allowing federal officials to effectively set drug prices. Price setting deters research investments. If a company cannot recuperate its research and development costs, it will not make those investments in the first place. Worldwide, price setting reduces investments into biopharmaceutical research and development by up to 16 percent annually, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Vice President Biden and his advisers are not wrong to worry about the high cost of prescriptions. The newest, most advanced drugs are only useful if patients can afford them. But instead of arbitrarily setting prices and weakening patents, Vice President Biden should continue to improve upon what's already been shown to work.
Consider copay assistance programs, through which drug manufacturers offer steep discounts on prescription medication for eligible patients in the form of coupons. These discounts saved patients a whopping $13 billion in 2018 alone. If elected, Biden could resist efforts that seek to block patients from using such coupons.
In attempting to bring down the cost of drugs, a Biden administration would be well-served to ensure that its proposed solutions work for patients -- not against them. Any plan that jeopardizes access to new cures should be a non-starter. Voters are craving pragmatic, competent leadership. Vice President Biden should not embrace impractical proposals that would impede development of lifesaving medicines his supporters, especially his Latinx supporters, need.
Rosa Mendoza is President and CEO of ALLvanza, an organization dedicated to the advancement of the Latinx and other underserved communities through education, advocacy and other tangible actions to ensure success in our technology-driven world. This piece originally ran in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
