5 ms·

I doubt the insurance was actually paying the sticker price on that medicine anyway. It's all part of the illusion.

• yardie 11y ago
  It's nationalised insurance. They don't need to mislead you to convince you there is a value in the service they provide. Since it's government the information is public. For example, when I buy medicine in France (also nationalised) it shows how much I pay and how much the government pays. So yes, they are paying whatever the receipt says.
  • zanny 11y ago
    If this is true, that is awful. That means nations are lining drug companies coffers for profit rather than just doing the research themselves and selling the fruits of research at the cost of manufacturing rather than arbitrarily insane prices due to state guaranteed monopolies.
    • gambiting 11y ago
      No, the state negotiates as low price as possible because the national health service is given a certain budget that they have to fit in. The difference here is that in US your insurance company might say that they will pay 50% and you have to pay the remaining 50%. In Poland the national health service would never offer you such a deal. Either it's fully covered or it's not offered at all. Therefore companies are willing to lower their prices so that the government accepts their medicine at all, rather than having it rejected and not offered at any of the hospitals. And the last time I checked the treatment with Glivec is a lot more expensive in US than it is here, so this system must be working at least partially.