AMA Journal of Ethics^®

Exploitation can be exacerbated when health professions students’ educational goals are overemphasized relative to patients’ and communities’ needs.

Ethics questions arise about the usefulness of a system that pegs Medicaid drug spending to net prices negotiated by others in the market.

Since the 1960s, drug names have been products of complex, multiparty negotiations in which interests of patients, pharmaceutical firms, clinicians, and US and international regulators must be balanced.

The AMA Code of Medical Ethics offers guidance on stewardship and professionalism.

How do we determine what a fair price for a life-saving prescription medication should be? This month, we discuss what is means for a price to be “fair” and explore the current legal and economic landscape of prescription drug pricing in the US.

In 1984, Hatch-Waxman tried to balance drug innovation against availability; it was tested in the US Supreme Court in 2013.

Louisiana has a subscription model for hepatitis C treatment, but costly medications challenge states’ capacities to cover patients.

Closed formularies can be justified when they enable spending on other socially valuable aims, but they can single out poor patients.

Overall utilization of the few biosimilars currently available to patients has been limited.

Regularly scheduled dialysis is not standard of care for most undocumented immigrants in the United States, so preventative care, and advocacy for it, is needed.