[maxerickson]

And the rest of the cost was covered by the magic money tree.

By which I mean people that pay insurance premiums and taxes (which fund government provided coverage).

Re your edit, drugs are 10% of US health spending: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/health-expenditures.htm

But if we want to significantly reduce spending overall, we are probably going to have to seize every opportunity, even the modest ones.

[orthoganol]

According to that Vice interview it's a fraction of a penny, and some giant corporations like Walmart were the only ones who actually stood to lose anything, which maybe helps explain why our corporate-controlled media was quick to portray him as the devil.

[maxerickson]

What is your "it"?

[stagbeetle]

Cost pass-off to consumers.

If we assume all 2,000 people that use daraprim daily at $120 a daily dose, it comes out to $87,600,000 yearly.

If we assume half of Americans don't have insurance (160 million), each American would see a hefty 50 cent increase in their yearly premiums.

This is a gross simplification, but $100,000,000 is a literal drop in the bucket.

[maxerickson]

It's a systemic problem though, it doesn't make sense to analyze it in terms of the cost of just one beneficiary of the problem.

[stagbeetle]

This is true, but it's similar to using resources on going after heroin users instead of focusing on distributors and manufacturers.

These are small fish and focusing on them lets the big players make even more moves.