Are Price Controls a Constructive Way to Lower Prescription Drug Costs?

American patients benefit from a bounty of choice and innovation in medical treatment options. Yet many Americans believe the price of prescription drugs is far too high, and politicians from both parties have proposed a flood of policies intended to lower pharmaceutical prices.

President Biden called for action on drug prices during his State of the Union Address. Congressional Democrats have held a series of hearings to promote a bill dubbed H.R. 3, the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act. And Republicans have countered with their own proposal.

But is the cost of prescription drugs really too high? Do American patients really pay much more for medicines than their counterparts in other countries? What effect would government-imposed price controls have on health care costs, innovation, and patient care?

Join us as our panel of distinguished experts discuss these and other issues and ask whether price controls are a constructive way to lower prescription drug costs.

Richard Manning – Managing Director, Intensity, LLC

James H. Williams – Former Special Assistant to the President, White House Domestic Policy Council

Joel M. Zinberg – MD, JD, Senior Fellow, CEI, and Former General Counsel and Senior Economist, Council of Economic Advisors

Moderator: Gregory Conko – Senior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Tuesday, June 29, 2021

12:00 – 1:00 pm EDT

Register: https://cei-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sRTHhaRVTneDKb_qw1u9kA

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Richard Manning is a managing director at Intensity, LLC, a consulting firm that offers research, analysis, and advice to clients in the areas of economics, finance, and statistics. His areas of expertise include health care pricing, reimbursement, and intellectual property. Prior to joining Intensity, Manning was a partner with the economic consulting firm Bates White. Before that, he was an executive director at Merck & Co., a senior director at Pfizer, and a director at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Manning has also been an assistant professor of economics at Brigham Young University and a visiting assistant professor in the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago and a B.A. from Brigham Young University.

James H. Williams was a Special Assistant to the President on the White House Domestic Policy Council from 2019 to 2021, where he developed and coordinated health policy in the areas of value-based payment models, prescription drug pricing, pandemic response, and public finance. He formerly served on the Council of Economic Advisers as an economist advising on health and regulatory affairs. He began his career as an economic consultant at the Lewin Group and as a Research Fellow with the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research in Boston, Massachusetts. James has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Gordon College in Massachusetts and a master’s degree from the University of Virginia.

Joel M. Zinberg is a senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and an associate clinical professor of surgery at the Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine. He practiced general and oncologic surgery for nearly 30 years at the Mount Sinai Hospital and taught for 10 years at the Columbia University Law School as a Lecturer in Law. From 2017 to 2019, he was general counsel and a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He received his J.D. from the Yale Law School, his M.D. from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a B.A. in economics from Swarthmore College.

Gregory Conko is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, where his research focuses on health care, food and drug regulation, and the regulation of novel technologies. He rejoined the CEI staff in November 2019 after serving as Deputy Director of the George Mason University Law & Economics Center. Earlier in his career, he was a Research Associate at the Capital Research Center, and later a senior fellow and then executive director at CEI. He has a J.D. from George Mason University and a B.A. in political science and history from American University.