Leb 323 Homework 10 - Ethics in Drug Pricing

Tristan Price

November 19, 2015

LEB 323

Ethics in Drug Pricing

        Drug prices have been increasing for years now, which presents many ethical questions? Is it right for a company to raise prices for drugs just because they can? I believe that this is completely unethical. By inflating drug prices you are taking advantage of many people who are possibly facing life threatening diseases. While some people may be able to afford these prices, the majority of the population cannot. So in this situation, we have given these people the choice to accumulate debt or to suffer from their illness with no treatment. It would make sense if these companies had no choice but to offer these drugs at high prices, but this is not the case. The fact that they simply raise prices because no one is stopping them is inherently wrong.

        Now let’s look at this situation from a business perspective. Pharmaceutical investments appear to be a goldmine to potential investors because of the uncapped market. I do not think that pharmaceuticals should be targeted for these massive gains. I would understand raising prices if it was necessary to keep the company running, but that is not why the prices hike. Making massive amounts of money off of something does not make up for the unethical issues at hand. If businesses could ignore all ethics than the US would not have labor laws. There would be sweat shops scattered across the 50 states to decrease labor costs and increase income. This is not the case for a reason. I think that these situations are similar and they should be handled in similar fashions. Pharmaceutical prices should be regulated to avoid this issue.