Editing Highland NS

Highland affirms:

Contention 1: Subsidizing Innovation

In the status quo, American biopharmaceutical research is suffering as Forbes in 2014 finds, the pharmaceutical industry’s Research and Development, or R&D, investment has fallen by 8% over 5 years and continues to decline. Emma Court from Cornell University in 2018 confirms this, finding that many drug companies’ currently lack the R&D investments to innovate. This decline in investment is problematic because Janine Schuurman finds in her peer reviewed study from 2014 that a lack of R&D projects impedes the pharmaceutical industries ability to productively innovate. However, Yale University in 2001 found that when price controls are imposed on the pharmaceutical industry, government subsidies are implemented and go into R&D to sustain development. Subsidies are a sum of money granted by the government to assist an industry. This is important because, Yue Shang from MDPI in 2018 found that a 1% increase in government subsidies lead to a 58% increase in R&D investment. Three impacts:

The first is medical development. The Brookings Institution noted in their 2017 report, that more than 18.2 million people are now receiving life-saving AIDS treatment and the malaria death rate among children under age five has gone down by 69%. Brookings furthers, that all of these groundbreaking and lifesaving discoveries have developed due to R&D investment. A vote for the affirmative restores this trend of medical development. 

The second impact is stimulating economic growth. According to a study by Bergum Sahin in 2015, a 1% increase in R&D spending would grow the economy by 0.61%. This is critical because it means that investing more in R&D accelerates national economic growth

The third impact is making healthcare cheaper, Dr. Rob Wright from Cleveland State University in 2013 found that for every $1 invested into R&D research, the cost of healthcare decreases by $7 due to health advancements, cutting healthcare spending across the board.

Affirming decimates the downward trend of R&D investment and restores productive growth for both medical innovation and the pockets of Americans. 

Contention 2: Increasing Adherence

According to the Commonwealth Fund in 2016, 14% of insured Americans reported that extremely high drug prices were the justification for why they did not fill prescriptions, decreasing their medical adherence. Adherence is defined as the degree to which a patient correctly follows medication or drug compliance. For example, patients with high medical adherence comply to their drug protocol consistently in comparison to patients with low adherence who do not. The New York Times furthers in 2017, that this lack of medical adherence has caused approximately 125,000 deaths and at least 10% of hospitalizations. However, Vox in 2018 finds that price controls would subsequently make pharmaceuticals more financially accessible leading to two impacts:

The first, is decreasing medical costs: According to a study conducted by Medco Health Solutions in 2005, high adherence levels where patients took their medication at rates of 80%-100% resulted in medical costs of approximately $5,000 while still taking into account prescription and hospital charges. Comparatively, the same study found that adherence levels where patients were less compliant when taking medication at rates of 1%-19% reflected costs of over $8,000 without purchasing prescribed drugs. By making prescription drugs financially accessible, consumers can cut back on avoidable healthcare expenditures and decrease medical costs.

The second impact, is saving lives. Imposing price controls would increase accessibility to cancer treatment and decrease the risk of death. Linda Brannon from the University of Texas at Austin confirms this in 2018, finding that respondents who were more adherent with their cancer treatment had a 30% lower risk of cancer related death and a 48% lower risk of death by cardiovascular disease later in life. Additionally, a study conducted by the College of Pharmacy at Purdue University in 2018 found that a 10% increase in medical adherence resulted in a 9% decrease in overall, individual mortality rates. 

Contention 3: Expanding Coverage

The National Council on Patient Information and Education found that, uninsured adults are twice as likely to underuse their medications in order to lower drug costs. Furthermore, US News reports in 2017 that when drug prices rise, so do the co-payments of those with insurance. The effects of this are contextualized by CNN Business in 2018 who find, that the healthcare uninsured rate rose 1.3%, representing an additional increase of roughly 3.2 million Americans. The Association for Accessible Medicines furthers in 2017 that the average annual price of specialty drugs has tripled over the last ten years, as a result, patients are experiencing higher pharmacy costs, higher premiums and higher deductibles as a result of high drug prices. By affirming, price controls would cause drug prices to decrease which will in turn decrease insurance premiums as health insurance companies would no longer shift the burden of high drug costs on consumers.

The impact is helping minorities. According to Dr. Becky Briesacher from Northwestern University in 2003, minority healthcare beneficiaries are particularly susceptible to medication underuse due to the burden of high costs. Briesacher furthers that, minority beneficiaries are less likely to have private sources of drug coverage, like health insurance due to exorbitant prices. By affirming, the discriminatory barriers that restrict access to health coverage and drug access for minorities in the US are struck down. 

Thus, we affirm.