US minority healthFoundation questions value of govt negotiations of drug prices

In the USA, "when national health policy is being deliberated, its implications for America's emerging majority are ignored," warns the US National Minority Health Month Foundation, in an Issue Brief released on February 19. "This omission has created a one-size-fits-all system that, by its design, provides care of unequal quality to a diverse community," it pointed out

Titled Drug Prices and the Emerging Majority: Should Government Negotiate Drug Prices? and available on the web at: www.nmhmf.org/issuebrief.pdf, the Issue Brief observes that "medical science is inexorably moving us toward a world of individualized care. Drugs are being designed to take advantage of our knowledge of genetic and biologic predispositions. Certainly, policy makers recognize this coming of age as they move to support stem-cell research, encourage investment in understanding the genome, and promote efforts to translate those insights into medical interventions. Yet they simultaneously seek to keep our health financing system locked in the past."

Health of emerging majority being sacrificed for short-term financial gain