Date of Submission
Spring 2023
Academic Program
Economics
Project Advisor 1
Michael Martell
Abstract/Artist's Statement
Abstract: Rising costs in specialty meds are at the center of the problems in healthcare. Pharmaceutical companies have grown to have nearly unchecked pricing power with specialty medications. Insurance companies have responded to rising prices in specialty medications by making these medications difficult to access for patients who need them. Policies to address the problems in healthcare have failed because they do not recognize the impact that the specialty medicine market has on the overarching story. Healthcare policy will be effective if it directly addresses specialty med costs and accessibility. This paper proposes an expansion of Medicare part D to the chronically ill and further leverage of Medicare’s newfound ability to negotiate prices. This policy is projected to not only improve the plight of the chronically ill, but also to improve the private market because it will restore the fidelity of core assumptions originally made in the consumer demand for health insurance.
Open Access Agreement
Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Coryell, Charles M., "Pre-existing Illness Discrimination in Healthcare: How Barriers to Specialty Medication Effect Public Health Costs and Access" (2023). Senior Projects Spring 2023. 354.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2023/354
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