On today's Planet Money:
We team up with the Pew Charitable Trusts for an intense debate on financial regulatory reform.
- Bob Litan and Scott Talbott duke it out over what to do with financial institutions that are too big to fail.
- Adam Levitin and Diane Casey-Landry sound off on a proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency.
- Darrell Duffie and Mark Brickell dispute the future of derivatives.
With special appearances by Alice Rivlin, Martin Bailey, Charles Calomiris, Peter Wallison and Adam's dad, Jack Davidson.
Bonus: After the jump, a listener calls co-pay assistance cards "the dumbest system I've ever seen."
Download the podcast; or subscribe. Intro music: TV On The Radio's "Wolf Like Me." Find us: Twitter/ Facebook/ Flickr.
Luke P. writes:
I had a high deductible HSA and was paying $75 a month for Lipitor. Then I got sent a Lipitor co-pay assistance card (didn't even ask for it). I think at some point, the price of Lipitor went up last year in PA anyway, but the card did lower my checks by $10, which was fine. I also started getting a lot of marketing materials about Lipitor specifically and heart health in general. Stuff to make me more brand loyal.
Recently, my wife got a job as a teacher that provides insurance. Now, the co-pay card takes care of everything out-of-pocket. I literally went from writing almost $1000 of checks for Lipitor a year, to getting it "free."
This is the dumbest system I've ever seen. If their plan to make me brand loyal works, and I stick with Lipitor instead of switching to the generic in a year or so, the taxpayers in my wife's school district will be paying a "stupid tax" of $1000/yr.
There can't be supply and demand in a system where the demand (to stay
alive) is infinite. This is exactly the reason why we have regulated monopolies for utilities in this country.
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