Cancer Complications: Confusing Bills, Maddening Errors And Endless Phone Calls

I am also aware that almost every drug advertised on TV (and available as a treatment) is now narrowly targeted to specific conditions of specific diseases rather than broadly. Yet, even when we were seeing Tylenol and Ibuprofen developed, the arguments for the "expenses of innovation" were the same.

I suspect it's hand waving away corruption. The number of large pharma companies going out of business is very small, meaning they aren't assuming risk that would justify the "expense of innovation" reasoning, in the US.

An alternative is that the costs AREN'T fixed - that a significant portion of the money involved goes to costs that aren't actually costs of the heath care itself. This could be insurance overhead (all the people to manage the paperwork to get approval for the work ultimately adds to bill I have to pay), inflated costs (for those without insurance, or dealing with things insurance won't/has stopped covering, the habit of hospitals to raise their base rates so they can then offer a discount to insurance companies hits them full on), market weaknesses (A lot has been written about how non-transparent the market is, meaning it's basically impossible to shop for good care at a good price), etc.

If a new splanch transplant (made up numbers here) ultimately costs $10,000 in the UK and $100,000 in the US (regardless of whether that is paid directly by me or indirectly via taxes), then the issue is different than what you've highlighted.

"It's crazy that I live in Canada, but now I'm looking at having to sell my house for coverage of my medication."

"Then I found out that this other country — which I thought had a healthcare system that was so superior to the U.S. — doesn't test for the tumour marker that saved my life, and doesn't cover this drug that is responsible for pushing my cancer into remission after traditional chemotherapy failed to do that."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/a-tale-of-2-...

http://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/RI_...

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Contrary to the industry’s claims, unaffordable prescription drugs are not the price we must pay for the industry to find cures and innovate affordable medicines; rather, it is the price tag we pay for an industry that values profits over patients and public health.

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Despite ample revenue and profits, however, R&D spending has been relatively stagnant. While industry revenue increased by 45 percent, or $241 billion from 2008 to 2014, industry spending on R&D increased just 8.5 percent in that same period, from $82 billion to $89 billion (GAO 2017). By some measures, R&D expenditures are actually falling, as more firms are outsourcing R&D to third parties. In that seven-year period, purchased R&D increased from $20.5 billion to $31.2 billion while in-house R&D fell from $61.7 to $58.2 billion (GAO 2017). Finally, the industry can only claim partial credit for recent medical breakthroughs. The federal funding provided by taxpayers contributes around 25 to 30 percent of all R&D spending per year, and a Bentley College study found that all 210 drugs approved between 2010 and 2016 were rooted, in whole or in part, on National Institute of Health (NIH)-funded research (Cleary et al. 2017).

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>The United States, which leaves pricing to market competition, has higher drug prices than other countries where governments directly or indirectly control medicine costs.

Leads me to believe that it's so expensive because it can be.