You say it like it's a good thing. It's part of the problem.
The fact that there is no clear no-nonsense to get a drug at a reasonable price without jumping through a bunch of hoops which aren't even clearly documented is not a good thing.
We are talking of life-saving drugs here, not hacking frequent flier miles or credit card rewards.
Yes
Is possible
I have a friend who imported the drugs she needed to treat type C hepatitis from India
Proceeded to set up a buyer's club that transformed the lives of dozens of people
What a stupid system, and how the most vulnerable suffer to benefit the most powerful
Looking at the wiki, was it solvadi/sofosbuvir or olysio/simeprevir?
"While access to the newer treatments was expensive, by 2022 prices had dropped dramatically in many countries (primarily low-income and lower-middle-income countries) due to the introduction of generic versions of medicines."
NY Times talks about list prices but that price isn’t even used by insurance companies.
The patient doesn’t pay list or net price they pay the co-pay. There doesn’t need to be price transparency. It’s like auto-insurance - do you need to know the negotiated rate for your collision repair?
No, you just pay your deductible and move on.
The list price is irrelevant to the insurer and the patient.
Insurance companies are inherently incentivized to maximize their costs which is one of the (if not the) biggest flaws of the US healthcare system.
Other countries which have entirely privatized systems (even to a larger degree than the US) like the Netherlands solve the by directly regulating prices.
Does it? I've read plenty of horror stories of people getting denied treatment by insurance, or paying tons of money for insurance barely covering anything.
And more broadly, how much money is wasted on multiple layers of beyond useless middlemen? How much money do hospitals spend on admin and billing departments dealing with this bullshit?
Strong "No Way to Prevent This, Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens" vibes.