3 ms·
Why not allow patients to buy generic insulin from overseas (from India for example) ? If I could just you know, ask a friend of mine to fly to India and bring
by slt2021 5y ago
Why not allow patients to buy generic insulin from overseas (from India for example) ?
If I could just you know, ask a friend of mine to fly to India and bring a monthly supply of cheap India made generic of Humalog, that would be great, right?
and if insurance company kicks in a few bucks for me, that would drive down the cost of care for insurance company as well
- xf1cf 5y agoSame reason you “can’t” do that with textbooks. The whole reason it’s cheap is the vast majority of the cost is shouldered by the west. If you were able to execute this arbitrage (and you should be able to but can’t legally) you would quickly find prices would lower slightly in the west and rise dramatically elsewhere. It’s all profiteering. By preventing price discovery they make a boatload of profit even after writing down the losses on “foreign aid”.
- Dracophoenix 5y agoThe FDA heavily restricts import of foreign drugs. That's been the case since the Thalidomide incident in the 60s. Essentially drug manufacturing is a closed market, not a free one. Even if one gets rid of the incumbents like Pfeizer or AstroZenica, the same system just breeds the same perverse incentives.