On Aug. 26 an Oklahoma judge ordered health care giant Johnson & Johnson to pay the state $572 million for costs incurred in the public-health crisis brought about by the opioid epidemic. Soon after, Purdue Pharma and its owners were reported to be offering $10-$20 billion to settle more than 2,000 lawsuits against the company for similar reasons.
The issue is not so much the size of the settlements but the distribution of the coming settlements. Who should be the beneficiaries of the money that drugmakers are either being forced to pay or are voluntarily settling?