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Comment by Factorium | Hacker News Reader

Is this the socialised price after Government subsidies?

If so, the cost of medicine is just borne elsewhere: the average tax wedge is 38% in France vs 18% in the USA for a married couple with 2 children:

https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-france.pdf

Sales tax is also 20% vs less than 10% in all US states.

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A quick google has found pharmacies in the UK selling it privately, unsubsidised, for around $40 for a pack of 10. Much more expensive than the quoted price for France, but certainly nowhere near the current US list price.

Study after study has shown that we pay more for medical care + taxes than other countries. As it stands, the excess gets syphoned off to feed the medical industrial complex.

We also pay doctors and nurses and techs significantly more than any other country. And part of that is because we pay pretty much all skilled labor more, so to attract nurses and doctors we need high pay....

No, it's before. After the Sécurité Sociale rebate, it's 0.28€ in Alsace-Moselle, and 0.97€ in the rest of France.

Here in Canada, we have a half dozen competing generic drug manufacturers. They're not subsidized. My province has a public drug insurer that covers the elderly and very poor. It negotiates a common price as a large insurer tends to do. It's public information. It represents roughly the market cost in bulk to purchase these drugs from for-profit companies in Canada.

https://www.formulary.health.gov.on.ca/formulary/results.xht...

Indomethacin can be bought from four different companies at $C0.12 per tablet.

A fair comparison does, I agree, need to look at the actual costs paid by people, and not just the number they see at the doctor.

But even taking that into account, the US still pays more:

https://www.rand.org/news/press/2021/01/28.html

The US government spends more on health care per capita than the French people and government. The problem is graft, not cost shifting - and it's a lot easier to see when you look at the numbers by % of GDP.

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