EXTROVERTED CAPITALISM: DRUG PRICE REGULATIONS AND KARL MARX

One of the biggest topics in the media around the world is something that affects everyone across age, class and racial divides - health care. Many studies have been done on the cost of prescription drugs and the price differences between several different nations. The relative significance of this issue in the public domain has varied. This issue surfaced in the United States during the debates over the creation of Medicare. In those debates, many people wanted to add prescription drugs to the program. The program only covers drugs administered in hospitals, and is most often used for elderly American citizens. This debate is often between those forces advocating a complete laissez-faire approach to drug pricing, pitted against individuals who desire strict federal price controls. Even though there is no consensus on how to measure the prices of drugs, there has been a few studies done by a variety of different companies and government organizations. And the results differ from study to study for example, the 1992 GAO report also showed that during the 1980s, average drug price increases were triple the inflation rate. Another study found that median price increases between 1985 and 1991 of a basket of 29 drugs increased 124.8% while the CPI increased only 26.2%. These studies just encouraged the citizens of the United States to push harder for prescription drugs to be put into the medicare program. There are a lot of factors in these studies, such as inflation rates, drug usage, what year(s) its held, and how often the drug is purchased. The general inflation rate from 1980 to 1990 was 58%; the rate for drugs was 152%, and a study determined that the fifty drugs most frequently used by seniors increased at more than twice the rate of inflation. For instance the drug Lorazepam, used in the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease and some convulsive illnesses, the price of the drug increased 179 times the inflation rate during the period of the study. A handful of studies compared the prices between a few different nations. A GAO study indicated that Americans pay 32% more for a basket of 121 drugs than Canadians do, and when it comes to the price of antidepressants Americans pay between 1.7 , and 2.9 times more for these drugs than Europeans. Americans pay much more than citizens of other nations, and prices rise substantially faster than inflation. Americans use fewer drugs in response to the higher list prices, the cheaper European prices mean that those citizens are using more drugs, often unnecessarily, simply because they are cheaper. The one thing these studies do not take into account is improvements in drug quality. Using all of the evidence above I believe that drug price regulation in the United States is necessary.

Karl Marx had very different views on how society should be than the general population of his time. Karl Marx was famous for a lot of his work including, The Communist Manifesto, and Criticism of Capitalism. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote “Then the world will be for the common people, and the sounds of happiness will reach the deepest springs. Ah! Come! People of every land, how can you not be roused.”(Marx,28). Marx strongly believed that the world should be run by the common people(middle class) and not by the huge corporations like it is today. He also wrote “Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. He was very much in the mindset that everyone should work together rather than being pitted against one another for power. Marx wanted the human race to have freedom and he believed that there were two classes when it came to capitalism, the working class(or proletariat) and the capitalist(or the bourgeoisie), the proletariat are defined by the fact that they don’t own or control the means of production. The bourgeoisie are defined by the fact that they do own the factories and the things that are made in them. “It’s this difference in who controls the means of production,” Marx said “that leads to exploitation in capitalism in the form of wage labour.”. “If the proletariat lack access to the means of labour” he argued “then they only have one thing they can sell: their labour.”. When Marx did his Criticism of Capitalism he mentioned that capitalism is nothing more than a necessary stepping stone for the progression of man, which would then face a political revolution before embracing the classless society. Marxists define capital as "a social, economic relation" between people (rather than between people and things).

I feel like Karl Marx would view the social issue of prescription drug price regulating as very important as it can determine the amount of money a proletariat would have left after their wage from the bourgeoisie and determine the freedom one might have. Marx would ultimately choose to lower the drug costs all together or change the medicare program. In a broader sense Marx would reform the entire healthcare system in the United States because currently the healthcare system benefits the bourgeoisie, and is bringing down the proletariats when they already don’t make enough money as it is. Generally speaking Marx would make it so the common people don’t pay as much towards healthcare if anything at all, giving them more freedom with their wages. In a way Marx has the right idea, increasing bills on the rich and lowering them for those who can’t afford it. Marx would agree that paying $2,800 per dose of a life saving heart attack medication(plasminogen activator) is absolutely unethical and absurd, he would have viewed life saving medications as a necessary means for life and would have thought it should be no cost. If Karl Marx did manage to revolutionize the American healthcare system, the economy would be a lot better off because citizens wouldn’t be spending most of their pay on prescription medication and doctors visits, it could be spent on things to improve their quality of life, such as better housing, better quality of food, and better schooling. Marx would want the common people to have the best quality of life that they could have, and when 75% of their wages or more goes towards their healthcare or their prescription drugs they would have to cut down on other things in life, maybe live in smaller apartment or spend less on food every month. In conclusion Karl Marx would want the healthcare system as a whole to benefit the proletariats and not the bourgeoisie.