I wonder if this has anything to do with drug re-importation laws.
I wish someone would do something about it. Like an executive order or something.
I wish someone would do something about it. Like an executive order or something.
1.) https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...
1. Other countries achieve lower drug prices because their governments regulate those prices.
2. The US (especially a particular political party) is anti-government regulation, especially when it comes to price controls, so drug prices are MUCH higher in the US.
3. Thus, the US president has issued an executive order to allow reimportation of drugs so that the US can take advantage of other countries' lower drug prices.
In other words, we won't pass our own regulations, so we are explicitly delegating our regulatory authority to other nations so that we can take advantage of the effects of their regulations.
Honestly, whether or not you are pro or anti regulation, this current state is just f'ing insane. You certainly can't consistently state that you are anti-regulation and be for this policy.
>The second reason, the authors noted, is that there isn't significant competition in the U.S. insulin market. Price competition typically comes from the introduction of a generic drug that directly competes with a branded product.
>But the authors said that current insulin makers have blocked the entry to such products by getting new patents based on things such as a new delivery device.
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2019-11-07/...
Patent reform would help bring generics on the market and reduce prices.
I don't see them gnashing their teeth over the ethical considerations of that.
As a diabetic I was excited to hear when Trump said that he had made Insulin as cheap as water.
However it still looks like it costs around $300 per vial at my pharmacy.
As one might expect, the pharma companies are fighting his executive order in the courts. Here's one article with some details.
I have a lot of hope for his ambitions to enact a favored nation's policy wrt Medicare's drug pricing, but since his administration's seemingly been lackluster on executing his order limiting insulin markups by federally funded clinics, I doubt his policies are anything other than paper tigers.
This won't help everybody. It has the same flaw as price-matching at Best Buy. The manufacturer could sell a different model in each country. For example, the USA gets one set of pill sizes (20 mg, 40 mg, 80 mg) and the rest of the world gets a different set of sizes (25 mg, 50 mg, 75 mg).
To combat that obvious maneuver, the orders make it easier to import drugs. Americans had been getting in trouble for importing drugs, even if the same ones are sold here. This made it easy to have different prices in different countries. It was like DVD region enforcement. The orders change that, making it really hard for manufacturers to keep the USA price high.
The type of insulin you get for "$300 per vial" might only be available in the USA, or it might actually cost that much (and seldom be prescribed) outside the USA. You might also be facing the issue of retail prices lagging behind wholesale prices. Check other retail locations.