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Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure

reuters.com

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Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure

#31

Post by le-mark »

dfxm12 wrote: post #12
KumaBear wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the US consumer of said medications subsidize many other countries who have access to the same medications for a fraction of the US sticker price?

Lots of reasons. One of them is that other countries negotiate deals country wide and can get bulk discounts. The US does this with the VA and Medicare, and people using those services generally pay less than the rest of Americans. In the end, it is largely a policy choice, as having a single payer could get better negotiated deals on drugs. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/how-medicare-negot...

Bah! Begone with your socialist mumbo jumbo! Fox News Entertainent channel tells me about you communist and your “single payer” sham all the time! We have the best healthcare! Merica!

This is satire btw.

Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure

#32

Post by begueradj »

> Drugmakers plan to raise U.S. prices on at least 350 branded medications including vaccines against COVID, RSV and shingles and blockbuster cancer treatment Ibrance, even as the Trump administration pressures them for cuts

Few days ago, Donald Trump pressured Emmanuel Macron to raise the prices of all medicines. The pressure was made with unspoken threats according to several mainstream French media such as this one [1].

[1]: https://www.tf1info.fr/international/trump-se-vante-d-avoir-...

Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure

#33

Post by Workaccount2 »

ck2 wrote: post #10

Why is the supreme-court slow-walking the tariff decision which is crystal clear as lower courts clearly demonstrate only Congress can set taxes/tariffs? It would end inflation within 90 days Even their silly 15% tariff fallback law abuse would be more sane than the 50-150% currently Next few years is going to be insanity

Inflation is low (relative to the last few years) and so far tariff related inflation hasn't manifested.

Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure

#34

Post by acdha »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #24
Uvix wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health insurance in general is the problem; PBMs/discount cards are just a cherry on top. Insurance is fundamentally incompatible with clear and consistent pricing.

Pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and doctors are free to charge by the medicine, by the night, and by the minute. For example, this place does it: https://surgerycenterok.com/surgery-prices/ Insurance companies do not force the sellers to use complex billing practices, they would benefit from more transparent pricing (since they are seeking to pay less). The root cause is healthcare is inherently complicated and…

Don’t do pro bono PR for those companies. Healthcare isn’t so complicated that every other country in the world hasn’t been able to solve it for significantly less money and far less stress for users, not to mention better health outcomes in most cases.

Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure

#35

Post by jandrewrogers »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #18
KumaBear wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the US consumer of said medications subsidize many other countries who have access to the same medications for a fraction of the US sticker price?

This is not like IT where the Americans are completely dominant and clearly superior. The European pharma companies are doing more than fine, despite their main market being heavily regulated and price-controlled. The less charitable explanation is that US companies want to charge outrageous prices, and the American system let them to, so they do it. That's what the USA are: a machine to prioritize profits over peopl…

Many of those European pharma companies do most of their work and make most of their money in the US.

Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure

#36

Post by weslleyskah »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #4

"Rome said the companies seem to be maximizing prices while negotiating discounts behind the scenes with health and drug insurers and then setting yet another price for direct-to-consumer cash-pay sales." This describes the biggest problem in US healthcare. No clear and consistent pricing. If we had a real market, you would get a prescription and then go to the seller with the lowest price. And everybody would get th…

Here in Brazil, we have something called 'Genéricos.' These are essentially the same medications as the brand-name versions, produced with the same chemical ingredients, but they often cost half the price, sometimes even cheaper than that.

Insanely comical.

Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure

#37

Post by eptcyka »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #22
KumaBear wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the US consumer of said medications subsidize many other countries who have access to the same medications for a fraction of the US sticker price?

"If Canada is getting a 30% discount we can make it up by baking it into the hundreds of smaller negotiations with American providers." Drug maker thinking

Do you believe that the deals they make are unprofitable given the discount? Do you think the other countries are keeping guns to their heads or what? The discounts are there because they can be, not because other countries want to pay below the break-even price. It is in the US where the drug companies can invest in the government just enough to recoup that with massive premiums in the convoluted medical system.

Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure

#38

Post by giantg2 »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #4

"Rome said the companies seem to be maximizing prices while negotiating discounts behind the scenes with health and drug insurers and then setting yet another price for direct-to-consumer cash-pay sales." This describes the biggest problem in US healthcare. No clear and consistent pricing. If we had a real market, you would get a prescription and then go to the seller with the lowest price. And everybody would get th…

"And everybody would get the same price. This whole business with PBMs that are owned by the insurance companies, discount cards and other shenanigans just invites corruption."

It's hard to say that it isn't racketeering at this point.

"Specifically, a racket was defined by this coinage as being a service that calls forth its own demand, and would not have been needed otherwise."

There's demand for the meds, but the demand for discount cards, forcing people to use specific services/companies, and related programs is all invented by the companies themselves.

Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure

#39

Post by juujian »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #19
vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #4

"Rome said the companies seem to be maximizing prices while negotiating discounts behind the scenes with health and drug insurers and then setting yet another price for direct-to-consumer cash-pay sales." This describes the biggest problem in US healthcare. No clear and consistent pricing. If we had a real market, you would get a prescription and then go to the seller with the lowest price. And everybody would get th…

Last year I needed to get blood work done, some of which may or may not be covered. It took me two weeks, dozens of phone calls, and multiple "escalations" to learn what would be covered and what the price would be if it wasn't Totally insane. The kicker is that after all that, the price I was billed wasn't even the price I was given (thankfully it was less though).

In practice, the whole system is set up in a way that discourages asking questions. Waste of time. It's truly the opposite of the transparent ideal market.

Re: Drugmakers raise US prices on 350 medicines despite pressure

#40

Post by acdha »

mmooss wrote: post #23
megaman821 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those European companies make most their profit in the US. They would be much smaller without access to the US market.

Maybe drugs, or these drugs, aren't the most efficient solutions. Shouldn't we direct resources toward more efficient ones?

There are a lot of bad health outcomes built into our society, yes, but by the time people are confronted with the health impacts of cars, agriculture subsidies, for-profit healthcare, etc. it is likely that drugs will be necessary to treat the very real, immediate problems which any given patient has. Reversing the subsidies for things like car-dependency would positively benefit millions of people but it’s a generational change, not something most individuals can do.
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