Legislative: Justice for All: The Next Big Breakthrough in Cancer Care

Abstract

Along with a broken and neglected public health system that lacks required federal funding to make real progress toward health equity, it is no surprise that the health status of the U.S. remains suboptimal while the costs of cancer care and survivorship continue to grow (Berwick. 2020). Cutting edge innovations with lifesaving potential unquestionably deserve investment;but if our goal is to save lives, the emphasis placed on these advances is outsized relative to the lifesaving reality of existing prevention, screening, and treatment modalities that many Americans still struggle to access due to social inequities in wealth, power and resource allocation. Tamryn F. Gray, PhD, RN, MPH Email: tamrvn qrav@dfci.harvard.edu Tamryn F. Gray is an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School within the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Department of Medicine at Brigham Women's Hospital. The result is an unregulated system between drug manufacturers who set their own list price for each drug, and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and insurers that negotiate a net price for people with insurance or Medicare while reaping the reward of their negotiation.