[flumpcakes]

You're subsidising paying other Americans extremely high salaries. You're also subsidising share holders and C-level people's luxury lifestyle. The same drug wouldn't cost $2b to create in any other country. It's not Europe's fault you treat basic healthcare like any other business to make money from.

[kenhwang]

If that were actually the case, Europe should've had a huge competitive advantage in drug development and priced the majority American drug companies out of business. Isn't anywhere close to happening, is it?

[danaris]

The barrier to entry to the pharmaceutical business is fairly high. Not only is it a pretty heavily regulated field (for damn good reasons), the equipment needed to start a drug company is significant and expensive, and the time between first investment and first payoff can be very long.

[flumpcakes]

Various reasons, including patents. Cost is not a "huge competetive advantage" or literally everything would be produced by other countries with fewer regulations for cheaper. There's plently of protected industries in nearly every country.