We’d pay less. They’d probably need to pay more. It’s utterly insane how we’re essentially subsidizing drug development for the entire world.
I think you'll find the only thing you're subsidizing is the profits of American pharmaceutical companies and health insurance providers.
Just get rid of health insurance, and spend that money on actual health care instead. It works mighty well in other countries.
Cut revenue, you cut R&D.
And the US is about half of all global revenue, so half of all R&D expenses. The other 95% of the global population pays the other half.
Since a lot of Pharma research is done at universities and is funded by the public, this holds true especially for insulin, maybe by cutting the costs of meds the companies optimise their system more.
Less marketing, no Pharma people bribing doctors to use their meds etc. I bet if you cut those unnecessary jobs and expenses before touching R&D or Profit a lot can be done.
And no, most pharma research is not funded by the public (the NIH budget is 1/4 what pharma spends).
There are a million things they could cut back on.
But the poor shareholders, would someone thing of the millionaires?!?
34% of money spent on healthcare is administrative overhead. Cut that, and you'll still have plenty of money for R&D https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31905376/
Very few countries have a single-payer system without health insurance providers, in case you're unaware. It's far from the norm in Europe and the developed world, or anywhere else for that matter. This map seems like a relatively decent source based on my spot-checking:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...
This isn't necessarily an argument against it, to be clear. I think single-payer systems have certain practical benefits compared to which I quite disliked the system in the last European country in which I lived.
I lived in Australia for 23 years, and Canada for 15. Australia has single payer and universal, Canada (apparently according to your map has single payer)
To be honest you're splitting hairs, and in practice it doesn't make any difference.
You live in the country, you get healthcare without paying a cent out of pocket.
Both of those countries spend less on healthcare per capita than the US, and both have measurably better health outcomes.
So it costs less, and it's better. Why would any person not want something that is measurably better and costs less?
This seems like a (probably unintentional, and partly due to my lack of specificity) straw man. The spectrum doesn't range from Australia to Canada, considering both offer a single payer system that covers a good amount of care, but rather from something like Switzerland to the UK/Nordics.
> You live in the country, you get healthcare without paying a cent out of pocket.
This is far from true in several/many of these systems, which was the point I was trying to make, but again I do believe I could have been clearer about this. My point was just that plenty of countries have healthcare systems that work well while spending money on health insurers rather than just on healthcare.
Single Payer: eg the NHS in UK. Single payer pays all costs and wages, care is free at the point of contact (GP/Specialist/Hospital), prescription prices capped for pharma approved by NICE.
Scheduled Reimbursement: eg Australia. All services have a set scheduled fee, if "bulk billed" then free at point of contact. If not, then gap is payable for GP/Specialist services, or in private hospitals or as "private patient" in public hospitals. Gap can be covered for hospital care by private insurance, which is subsidized. Prescription prices capped for pharma approved by PBS. Private insurance regulated in terms of what is covered and limits due to pre-existing conditions etc.
Regulated Insurance: eg Germany/other EU. Health insurance is "compulsory" for all residents, with costs split between employee/employer, or picked up by government for unemployed. Insurance companies strictly regulated in terms of margins, "medical loss ratios", coverage etc.
All of these models provide better overall care and better overall outcomes for the country than the current US system. In particular, these aspects of the US system cause a large majority of the issues:
1. Lack of Transparency: Medical providers (hospitals/GPs/Specialists) are not required to publish a fixed price for services delivered, with opaque contractual relationships with payers.
2. Pharma: No regulation on prices, windfall taxes on excessive profit, universal availability, or even the negotiation on prices when government purchases.
3. Insurance Company Profit: The overall limit of 20% margins is excessive. There is no reason that insurance companies should be guaranteed this gross margin, when the actual cost of the service they provide is 10% of that, based on the costs incurred by government equivalents such as Tricare and Medicare.
So the solution is not "Let US pharmacies buy drugs from Canada where its cheaper". The solution is: "Let government programs negotiate with pharma companies to use their purchases to reduce prices" and "Require all medical service providers to publish their actual prices transparently and comparably without being able to negotiate secret reductions based on bulk purchases by insurance companies".
I'd say US should get over their lurking savior syndrome.
Once they have the drug developed it makes sense to sell it wherever they can, at whatever price they can get (above COGS and overhead, of course), as profit is profit—so long as it doesn't cannibalize their much more profitable sales in the USA.
If the USA were to suddenly allow retailers to import drugs at scale from other countries to reduce costs then those countries would find their supply of cheaper drugs drying up. They could either accept prices on par with those in the USA, thus eliminating the arbitrage, or simply go without.