In his first press conference as president, Donald Trump accused drug companies of "Getting away with murder," and Bernie Sanders has called the industry's greed a "Public-health hazard to the American people." A central plank in the "Better Deal" that Democrats are promising in the midterm elections is for the federal government to "Negotiate" drug prices, and some progressives don't even make that semantical pretense.
More than 80 percent of them say that the cost of prescription drugs is unreasonable, but nearly as many, 74 percent, say that they personally find it easy to afford the drugs.
Daraprim has become the poster drug of reformers, a symbol of what's wrong with Big Pharma and why America needs to emulate Europe.
Even after the drug has been certified for use in Europe, there's often a further delay in reaching patients because their national health plans won't include it in the list of covered drugs.
The better question is: Why shouldn't Europeans spend more? Americans pay far more than their fair share for drug research and development.
The officials in charge of it-Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services, and Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration-have experience with private-sector drug development as well as the federal bureaucracy, and they've adopted reforms advocated by free-market think tanks: less government control, more market competition.
The effect on patients wasn't as dire as it appeared in the press, because another company began offering them $1 pills of a different drug that could be used instead. But the story did illustrate a genuine problem because other companies have exploited similar monopolies to jack up prices on generic drugs that cost little to produce.
https://www.city-journal.org/price-controls-on-pharmaceuticals
More than 80 percent of them say that the cost of prescription drugs is unreasonable, but nearly as many, 74 percent, say that they personally find it easy to afford the drugs.
Daraprim has become the poster drug of reformers, a symbol of what's wrong with Big Pharma and why America needs to emulate Europe.
Even after the drug has been certified for use in Europe, there's often a further delay in reaching patients because their national health plans won't include it in the list of covered drugs.
The better question is: Why shouldn't Europeans spend more? Americans pay far more than their fair share for drug research and development.
The officials in charge of it-Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services, and Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration-have experience with private-sector drug development as well as the federal bureaucracy, and they've adopted reforms advocated by free-market think tanks: less government control, more market competition.
The effect on patients wasn't as dire as it appeared in the press, because another company began offering them $1 pills of a different drug that could be used instead. But the story did illustrate a genuine problem because other companies have exploited similar monopolies to jack up prices on generic drugs that cost little to produce.
https://www.city-journal.org/price-controls-on-pharmaceuticals
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