Medicine costs are the tip of the iceberg

July 3, 2009

WHILE EFFORTS to prompt disclosure of payments made by companies within the medical industry to physicians should be applauded, your July 1 editorial (“Better ethics, cheaper drugs’’) is naive in contemplating the impact of this legislation.

Generic medicines already account for more than two-thirds of all prescriptions and few situations exist where branded medicines are used when cheaper generics exist within the same class of drugs. This legislation will probably have little to no impact on prescription drug spending.

Furthermore, your editorial perpetuates the fallacy that prescription drug spending is the major factor behind the growth in healthcare spending. Prescription drugs account for only 10 percent of our national healthcare spending. The simple truth is that pharmaceutical and biotechnology products typically represent less costly interventions than intensive medical procedures.

A continued singular focus on cutting drug spending, believing it to be panacea for fixing our healthcare cost crisis, will not solve our problem.

Until our focus is shifted toward the system as a whole, with particular attention paid to spending on physician and outpatient services, sustainable healthcare reform will remain unattainable.

Matthew Riordan
Melrose