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Why does the US consumer of said medications subsidize many other countries who have access to the same medications for a fraction of the US sticker price?
by KumaBear 10mo ago
Why does the US consumer of said medications subsidize many other countries who have access to the same medications for a fraction of the US sticker price?
- showerst 10mo agoIf you pitched a pharma company with the thesis of "We'll charge US customers less and global customers more", what would stop that from working? I can think of a number of things.
- blackbear_ 10mo agoBecause US voters prefer the free market as opposed to government regulation and nationalized healthcare.
- dfxm12 10mo agoCan you provide evidence for the claim? Polling from pew and Gallup suggest this isn't the case.
- mmooss 10mo agoI think surveys show voters prefer the opposite, but certain powers are able to overcome that.
- no_wizard 10mo agoIt is certainly a market, but I wouldn’t call it a free market. Healthcare, like real estate, is a dysfunctional marketplace lacking real competition
- pepperball 10mo agoUS voters have no principles. Even republicans started artistically screaming about nationalizing companies when they didn’t want to play ball with the president.
- hypeatei 10mo agoI'm assuming you're European and just want to make an "America bad" post because this is comically ignorant. There wouldn't be mountains of federal code to adhere to if that was the case. This is a trope among populists: pass legislation around <thing>, observe consequences of doing so, blame the "free market", repeat.
- blackbear_ 10mo agoWhat other countries could teach the U.S. about bringing down drug prices A look at how European governments negotiate with pharma companies helps explain why Americans pay more for prescription drugs. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2024/11/what-other-countries-could-teach-us-about-bringing-down-drug-prices https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2024/11/what-other-countri...
- hypeatei 10mo agoSure, but that article literally contradicts your original point about Americans wanting a "free market" as it lists the complicated nature of existing laws, Medicare, PBMs etc. and the incentives those create. You could just say "Americans need to vote better and cleanup their laws around this" and yes, that would be ideal, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. It's part of why some want the government to not involve themselves at all: no matter how good the politicians you elect, others can come into office and fuck it all up while everyone is forced to deal with it because they have the monopoly on violence. Not to mention the glacial pace at which our legislative bodies move.
- georgemcbay 10mo ago> US voters prefer the free market as opposed to government regulation and nationalized healthcare. Because US voters are dumb. (Just for context, I'm a US citizen). Free markets don't work when there is inelastic demand for a good or service, and an awful lot of health care (unless you consider 'well, guess I'll just die then' as a reasonable outcome) is inelastic demand.
- dfxm12 10mo agoLots of reasons. One of them is that other countries negotiate deals country wide and can get bulk discounts. The US does this with the VA and Medicare, and people using those services generally pay less than the rest of Americans. In the end, it is largely a policy choice, as having a single payer could get better negotiated deals on drugs. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/how-medicare-negotiated-drug-prices-compare-to-other-countries/ https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/how-medicare-negot...
- le-mark 10mo agoBah! Begone with your socialist mumbo jumbo! Fox News Entertainent channel tells me about you communist and your “single payer” sham all the time! We have the best healthcare! Merica! This is satire btw.
- KumaBear 10mo agoThanks for adding this information and yes this is exactly the point I was trying to make. Nationalized systems have better outcomes when they control the supply, demand, and pricing. If that doesn’t work manufacture it ourselves at a discount.
- BiteCode_dev 10mo agoThis is not like IT where the Americans are completely dominant and clearly superior. The European pharma companies are doing more than fine, despite their main market being heavily regulated and price-controlled. The less charitable explanation is that US companies want to charge outrageous prices, and the American system let them to, so they do it. That's what the USA are: a machine to prioritize profits over people. Sometimes it turns out fine, like for the startup scene. Sometimes it's terrible, like when lives at stake. Other explanations sound like heavy copium to me.
- megaman821 10mo agoThose European companies make most their profit in the US. They would be much smaller without access to the US market.
- mmooss 10mo agoMaybe drugs, or these drugs, aren't the most efficient solutions. Shouldn't we direct resources toward more efficient ones?
- gruez 10mo ago>Maybe drugs, or these drugs, aren't the most efficient solutions. Shouldn't we direct resources toward more efficient ones? Turns out all the low hanging fruit have already been picked, so the only "more efficient ones" left are stuff like gene therapy, which are absurdly expensive, but still theoretically cheaper than a lifetime of care. Unsurprisingly the high sticker price draws much backlash from the public and politicians.
- mmooss 10mo ago> all the low hanging fruit have already been picked What is that based on? Also, I'm not talking about 'low hanging fruit' necessarily; only solutons that become cost effective for vendors if drug prices aren't so extreme. There's reason to think there is low-hanging fruit: Research is incentivized for the most profitable solutions for the vendors, not the most cost-effective solutions for patients.
- Workaccount2 10mo ago"If Canada is getting a 30% discount we can make it up by baking it into the hundreds of smaller negotiations with American providers." Drug maker thinking
- eptcyka 10mo agoDo you believe that the deals they make are unprofitable given the discount? Do you think the other countries are keeping guns to their heads or what? The discounts are there because they can be, not because other countries want to pay below the break-even price. It is in the US where the drug companies can invest in the government just enough to recoup that with massive premiums in the convoluted medical system.
- tokai 10mo agoAmericans really love to tell themselves they are paying for others. You victimize yourselves, and then blame externalities. Fix you own issues.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- vkou 10mo agoNobody's forcing US pharama companies to sell to those countries at those prices, they choose to, because it makes them more money. Foreigners aren't the reason American healthcare sucks. Stop looking for people to blame abroad, all the sources of your problems are in the presidency, congress, and in the boardroom that directs the former.