Are You Taxing Your Children?

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In cancer drug trials, the company will give the drug for free in the trial. In the real world, there are many drugs you get for free, but there's often a little bit of a copay. You're taking out of their pocket to get an extra month or two. They don't think about it that way; they say, well, the drug's free because Medicare covers it. And when you remind people that they get tired of it, like, oh, there's no free lunch.

Oncologist and epidemiologist Vinay Prasad argues that too many very expensive drugs get approved by the FDA that have very limited impact on the lives of patients. Prasad explains the incentives that distort the current system. The general problem, he explains to EconTalk host Russ Roberts, is the death of duty--too many players in the health care landscape and elsewhere stay quiet or do the wrong thing in order to serve themselves.