[refurb]

Drug costs are ~10% of all healthcare spending in the US. Even if the gov't created all the drugs and made them "free", we'd still be spending double the next closest developed country.

Drug spending might be very visible to the public, but it's not a major contributor to healthcare costs.

[kingkawn]

Last I saw healthcare accounts for just under 20% of the US GDP.

So then we’re talking about a market that’s just under 2% of the GDP if your 10% number holds.

At these scales nothing is trivial.

[vonmoltke]

It's trivial with respect to moving the needle on the overall problem, particularly since that number needs to be broken down by how much is spent on really expensive drugs versus how much is spent on affordable, generic maintenance medications.