[skyhatch1]

Pricing comparison charts for 8 drugs in 14 countries: http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-drug-prices/

US tops the list every time - even with discounts negotiated by insurers. The flipside to these exorbitant costs is the accessibility they bring.

It's easy to ignore the fact that US pricing arrangements motivate pharmaceutical companies to market more of these drugs. Keyword: market.

As sad as it feels to say this, a more socialist agenda wouldn't nurture as much drug commercialization - development perhaps, but not marketable products.

Australia's social healthcare, Medicare, is driving down the price of common "molecules" to negligible amounts.

These days, you can really sense apathy on the pharmas' part. Stock outages are frequent because there simply isn't a $ factor to make them care.

On top of being a geek, I'm a pharmacist business manager - knowing how drug pricing economics works is part of my job.

[calvinbhai]

"Discount negotiated by insurers" is the mirage americans live in.

$10 pill is marked up to $100, charged to insurer. your health insurance with a premium of $250 per month, negotiates the price and enables you to buy it for $15, giving you a illusionary savings of "$85".

Same pill, is probably available in India, at a market rate of $5-$7.

People compare market rate of the pill in India $5 with the pre-negotiation sticker price in US of $100.

Q to the Pharmacist Business Manager: Do you think prices of these drugs would remain so high, if health insurance companies didn't exist and everyone paid for medicines and services out of pocket?