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by SamAtt 5733 days ago
I don't think it's hidden at all. He says in the Drugs section...

"The problem is that our drugs, on the whole, cost about 50% more. For name brand pharmaceuticals, we pay about 77% more. Why? Some will say that it’s because we’re wealthier and need to subsidize for the rest of the world. But even if we paid more based on our relative wealth, it would come to about a 30% premium, not the 77% we do pay."

So the problem is obvious. The issue is how to fix it. We in the U.S. can either enforce our own price controls which will break the system or we can force U.S. companies to charge more to other countries and take the chance of denying medicine to sick people because foreign governments won't accept the higher prices.

Not an attractive choice no matter how you slice it.
2 comments
chopsueyar 5733 days ago
Okay, I understand how it would be possible (not agreeing) to "enforce our own price controls", but how can the U.S force it's companies to charge more to other countries?

If we placed an export tariff on these pharmaceuticals, I fail to see how that could decrease pharmaceutical prices in the US.

Japanese car companies moved production here, why couldn't big pharma do the same?

I don't see two options.

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MoreTuple 5733 days ago
Or we can tell companies to charge amicably across the board else they risk losing patents on drugs sold to Americans at grossly inflated rates. A drug patent should give a company the right to sell/license the drug, not the right to gouge people with it.

Clearly this lacks details, but the concept would work after the first few nullified patents.

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anamax 5733 days ago
Or we can tell companies to charge amicably across the board else they risk losing patents on drugs sold to Americans at grossly inflated rates. A drug patent should give a company the right to sell/license the drug, not the right to gouge people with it.

> Clearly this lacks details, but the concept would work after the first few nullified patents.

Of course it will "work", but are you sure that you'll be happy with the result?

Some other countries have said exactly that, the result being that folks in those countries are paying production costs but not R&D costs. If the drug companies can't recover R&D costs in the US, how do you think that the R&D costs will be paid?

If they don't think that they'll be able to recover R&D costs, what do you think that they'll do?

If you think that they can charge less and recover their costs, why don't you do so and drive them out of biz?

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