Interest Group in Healthcare

In the article by Boggs (2006) on the role that Big Pharmathe pharmaceutical industryplays in serving as an interest group in healthcare, the author reviews several books on the subject and concludes that this interest group is exploiting modern American medicine, law, and capitalist systems to its advantage. It highlights for instance how the trade association PhRMA is one of the largestinterestgroupsin Washington, DC, and how it uses its influence and money to lobby for regulations that would help rather than harm Big Pharma. It is a relationship that does not speak well of either the drug industry or the healthcare industry, as Boggs (2006) exposes a quid pro quo type of relationship in which profits are put before patients.

Boggs (2006) explains that in the United States, the health care industry is a for-profit business. One way that profits are put before patients is in the form of lobbying by special interests groups, such as Big Pharma (various drug companies...

Big Pharma as a whole lobbies for regulations that benefit the drug companies rather than patients. For example, the FDA requires a generic version of a drug to be proven equivalent to the brand-name version before it can be sold. However, this process is long and expensive, so most generics...…essentially ends up running the healthcare industry, especially when it comes to the FDAs oversight of what drugs are allowed to be brought to market and what drugs are not; what is considered safe (like emergency vaccines, for instance) and what is not. These companies are shown by Boggs (2006) to be far more interested in making money for investors and stakeholders than in helping people or putting their actual health needs first. If the countrys healthcare industry actually promoted health literacy and preventive medicine, the influence of Big Pharma would likely drop substantiallybut it does not; instead it promotes drug interventions because of the power and influence Big Pharma wields.

References

Boggs,…