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Comment by anilgulecha | Hacker News Reader

Hi Alex,

How is the example cost of Albendazole right? Technically, it's a generic drug, and the cost is 10c (locally in India, atleast). What marks this up 130x in the US?

[1] eg: https://www.1mg.com/drugs/zentel-tablet-137773

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Pharmaceutical companies in the US charge whatever they can get away with, with the argument that insurance will cover it for most people. The price of insulin (clearly not a new drug) has increased 10x in the last 15 years.

The price of insulin (clearly not a new drug)

This is a misconception. There are dozens of different drugs people refer to as Insulin, some new insulin analogs are better, and expensive. You can still get old synthetic formulations very cheaply. Walmart famously sells them for $25.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/311300#drugs-for-t...

How is $25 "very cheaply" ? That's already super expensive !

It's absolutely insane really. $25 is not cheap for something you need to live.

Sometimes I'm so happy to live in Ireland, I know we have our faults. But at least with some things, we seem to get it right.

Diabetics in Ireland have 0 cost associated with it. They can go to any pharmacy, and get anything related to Diabetes for free, and as much of it as they need.

This should be the case for any life long illness - or any illness for that matter, in any country; in my opinion. Healthcare should be free for all, it amazes me that this is not yet the case. I do know deep down that it will be eventually though.

But it's not 'free' in Ireland, right? It's just covered (as it should be). Here in Czechia it costs around $30 - covered of course. But the US price doesn't seem out of reality - it's cheaper than here!

It's free at the point of service.

Yeah, in CZ you also get it without any out of pocket payment if you have prescription - the insurance pays it directly to the pharmacy. But I guess you can't go and get it for free without any prescription in Ireland, right?

It’s free at the point of service in the U.S. as well with most insurance plans, including Medicaid which covers most low income people.

> Healthcare should be free for all, it amazes me that this is not yet the case.

Why are you amazed? It's impossible to provide a valuable product or service for free without institutionalizing either slavery or robbery, and not everyone agrees on that trade-off.

Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of opinion regarding this, it shouldn't come as a surprise that there are some people with philosophical objections to encoding nonconsensual interactions like slavery or robbery into the fabric of our society.

Many reasonable people agree that providing healthcare (or other important services) for "free" to all people is more important than not having the government rob people to pay for it.

Many reasonable people agree that that is a bridge too far, and that we shouldn't be robbing people, regardless of what the stolen money is used to do.

Both are sincere positions held by sane, reasonable, intelligent, empathetic people.

This is missing the point. The insulin Walmart sells for cheaps is definitely lower quality, which causes serious complications in the long run because it's impossible to _accurately_ regulate your blood glucose levels.

The newer, better insulin costs around €7 (~$8.50) per pen in Europe. That same pen costs $180+ in the US. The markup these companies charge is criminal.

Willpostforfood’s point was that “insulin” is not an old drug, as there are many forms of it, and some are new.

Exactly, and that the Walmart version is not "low quality". It is the older formulation. The newer better insulin analogs aren't the same old drug, but priced up. They are new, different drugs that are better.

Quite the opposite: drug regulation in the USA makes it criminal for people to sell the European pens in the US.

The status quo isn't criminal: changing it to make things cheaper and more efficient is.

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